The Student Senators Council recommends that additional funding be provided to the Alternative Breaks program.

The Problem

The Alternative Breaks program offers students the opportunity to demonstrate service to a community during their vacation time.  The SSC also applauds this program for giving dedicated students the tools they need to serve less-fortunate communities but believes the financial costs associated with this program and bore by attending students, especially in the international programs, is too high. 

Accordingly, the SSC recommends that additional funding be allotted to the Alternative Breaks program so that these costs to students may be lessened.

NYU Administration Response

We support this recommendation. In FY10, approxmately 70 students participated in the Alternative Breaks' five international service projects that included service-learning courses in conjunction with faculty from CAS, SSW, and Wagner at sites in Mexico, Ghana, Peru. The travel and living cost per student was approximately $1,500 to $3,000 (depending on the country). While the program is annually funded primarily through the fundraising efforts and personal funds of student participants ($135,000), the Center for Student Activities covers the cost of the faculty and administrators who travel with the students at a cost of approximately $30,000 (FY10) and an anticipated cost of $50,000 (FY11), as we plan to implement new initiatives with select NYU global sites and Abu Dhabi. This budget expense is quite burdensome, given the cost of travel, but recognizing the importance of this initiative, we stand committed to maintaining this program at its current level, while seeking additional funding from other sources to expand the program.