I think the problem with dues is that in many cases, collegiate members truly don't know what they're paying for or why. Even if there are meetings establishing budgets, how many are paying attention to the breakdown? Is the breakdown distributed?
After BLM and COVID both became THE topics of 2020, there were many angry collegians wondering why national organizations were still collecting national dues and/or why they weren't donating large sums of money to BLM-related organizations and nonprofits. All of us here are aware of how our organizations operate and understand the relatively minimal amount of money per collegian our organizations typically receive through dues. They need to be able to keep the lights on, pay salaries, cover insurance, and run programs to provide members with helpful and meaningful experiences.
But how transparent are GLOs? I was going through some NPC websites recently for reference for a project, and props to SDT for laying out dues on their website:
https://sigmadeltatau.org/join-us/pr...national-fees/. I don't know if there are others who do the same, but financial transparency is especially important nowadays. Even before the s***storm of 2020, college costs have been exponentially rising, and if students are going to fork over even more money for something, they want to see the value in it and know they're putting it toward the right things.
I know I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here. But I think there is a higher level of understanding needed from both sides - the organizations and newer members - in order to come together and find solutions that will benefit everyone.
But if collegians simply want to scream, "Dues aren't fair and are discriminatory!" then that's absurd.