The benefits of the proposed Undergraduate Council fee hike are being obscured by poor representation.

Ten dollars. Pending Faculty Council approval, that's the amount the Undergraduate Council is planning to add to your annual term bill fee. Ten dollars.

For those of you, like me, who have a hard time dealing with abstract things like numbers, let me translate; $10 is what you'll pay for a pitcher of Foster's (including tip) at the Crimson Sports Grille. It's also what you'll pay Pizza Ring some evening when you and your suite-mates decide you can't live without the Super Price Blaster Special, or what you'll shell out for a ticket to a movie at Loews and a large bucket of buttered popcorn.

In terms of purchasing power, we're not talking about a lot of money. Most of us would agree that it's hard to go out in this tourist trap known as Cambridge without throwing away at least $10.

Then why is it that a majority of the campus (according to a Crimson poll conducted this week) takes issue with the council's proposed term bill increase? After all, isn't this the campus that, just a week ago, raised $25,000 in two days through $10 donations?

I would argue that, for most students, the problem with the increase is not its amount, but rather its perceived justification (or lack thereof); the question students are asking themselves is not, "Can I afford to pay another $10?" but rather, "Does the Undergraduate Council deserve another $10?" This is an appropriate and understandable query, and if your knowledge of the council and its activities is limited to what you read in The Crimson, it wouldn't be surprising or unreasonable if your response is "No."

Clearly there are a number of people on this campus who despise the Undergraduate Council: certain Crimson editorialists, Salient staff writers and former council members come to mind. There are also some people who think the council is great; granted, most of them are council representatives, but that's beside the point. Even if you were to combine these groups, however, they would account for a fairly small minority of the student body.

Most Harvard students don't care much one way or another. According to this week's Crimson survey, a majority of undergraduates can't name even two things the council has done in the past year. Apparently, there is a breakdown in the communication channels between representatives and the represented. As a result, many students are still not sure exactly how they feel about the proposed fee hike and many of those who think they know are basing their opinions on misleading information Legitimate reasons for both opposition and support exist.

You shouldn't support the council's term bill increase because the council is complaining that it has less money than the student governments at every other school in the greater Boston area. To an extent, these differences can be explained by disparities in size and responsibility.

More important, however, is the fact that the motivation to increase student term bill fees at Harvard should not be based on the amount of money the student governments collect at Boston College, Boston University, Tufts or MIT. "Need" should be defined in real rather than relative terms. What maters isn't how much money the council has, but what it's doing with what it's got.

You probably shouldn't support an increase in the council term bill fee if you can't name at least one of your House or Yard representatives, or if you can't name at least tow things the council has accomplished in the past year.

You also probably shouldn't support it if you can think of those things, but you think they were a waste of money, or if think the council should limit it self to serving as a liaison between the student body and faculty and forget about silly things like concerts and shuttle buses.

And for those of you in the classes of '94 and '95 who still cannot dissociate the term "Undergraduate Council" from the three syllables "De La Soul," it's a safe bet that you should not support a term bill increase.

An informed decision to support the council's term bill increase should be based on two criteria: what the council is doing with the funds it already has, and what the council proposes to do with the hypothetical $60,000 in new revenue generated by a term bill hike.

Currently, the term bill fee is $20 and the council's annual budget is in the neighborhood of $120,000. A portion of this goes to operational costs (office supplies, space rental, phone and fax lines, maintenance and upkeep of equipment, etc.);$80,000 goes to student grants and the remaining amount--about $30,000--goes to fund council activities.