Penn’s Undergraduate Assembly recently approved the budget for student organizations in the 2025-26 academic year.
Distributed by the Provost's office, the UA 2025-26 budget totals over $3 million, marking around a 2% increase from the 2024-25 academic year. The UA distributes money to various student entities, including Penn’s Medical Emergency Response Team, the Student Activities Council, and the Social Planning and Events Committee.
In a message to Penn’s undergraduate student body announcing the budget, College senior and UA President Ria Ellendula said that the funding “directly goes towards supporting student-facing initiatives, student organizations, and essential student services.”
For the upcoming academic year, SAC requested $928,402 and received $1,035,430 — a 12% increase from last year. SAC Contingency, which covers unexpected expenses, similarly received over $15,000 more than what was requested in grants.
The UA will no longer grant funding for the UA Contingency fund, a student-led funding board that serves as a “last-resort funding source” for covering costs. Instead, the budget will now be allocated to SAC.
The newly approved budget also terminated funding to SPEC Fully Planned, which the budget allocation describes as “a student-led funding board responsible for covering public, accessible events that are ready to go but need financial assistance to be viable.” This year, the $65,000 historically reserved for SPEC Fully Planned will be allocated to SAC, in line with a new funding model for the year. SPEC’s total funds for 2025-2026 will decrease by about 7%.
The UA’s internal board, which is responsible for the organization’s operations and administration, was granted $8,600 — over 50% more than last year’s internal budget. Funding for the UA’s website, along with “food and print expenditures,” saw a notable increase.
MERT, Penn’s student-run volunteer medical services organization, requested significantly more funding than in previous years. For 2025-2026, the UA granted MERT $19,075. Although the total amount was less than MERT requested, the organization received a 25% funding increase since last academic year.
Despite the multiple increases, the UA’s funding for airport shuttles will decrease by more than 110%. According to the budget allocation, Penn’s Business Services will no longer cover the shuttles, and the UA and University Life will each pay for around half of the expenses.
Penn’s Nominations and Elections Committee also saw a 20% decrease in its budget — from $11,443 in the 2024-2025 school year to $9,115 for 2025-2026. Among the changes, the UA will no longer supply funding for Candidate Center Web Development or Candidate Center Promotion.
There was no change in the amount allocated to New Student Orientation programming, including the traditional Philadelphia Museum of Art event and preceptorials. Pre-Orientation Programs, including PENNacle, PennQuest, and PennArts, also received the same amount of funding. PennLabs — a group of student engineers, developers, and designers that create products to improve student life — received a less than 1% increase in funding.
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