Over the past few years, “opt-outs” have emerged as one of the most contentious issues in campus politics. For two weeks every semester, students have the option of opting out of certain fees, and, like clockwork, for those two weeks the debate over one opt outable fee in particular starts to resemble a bar brawl. As predictable as it is polarizing, the debate over the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG)-McGill’s student fee has become a regular fixture on the campus political calendar.

The anti-QPIRG campaign was back again this semester, and although it doesn’t target Students’ Society or faculty association fees, such campaigns lead to increased opt outs across the board by drawing attention to the opt-out process itself. Greater awareness of the ability to opt out of these fees is by no means a problem. The issue is when students opt out of fees without fully informing themselves of what they are or aren’t supporting. This year a group of student associations joined together to launch an “opt in” campaign with the reasonable and admirable goal of ensuring students are informed before choosing whether to opt out.

While the opt-out system isn’t perfect, it serves its function. The default is to pay the fees, but almost no one disagrees with the option to opt out. Students under financial pressure or those who have a strong moral opposition to a particular group should be able to get those fees back. The associations behind the opt-in campaign want to avoid blanket opt outs, where students opt out of every fee without paying attention to what each fee goes to support.

I learned from reporting on opt outs in 2010 that there’s plenty of evidence that this happens.

QPIRG and Radio CKUT usually have somewhat higher opt-out rates than any of the SSMU fees, for example, which tend to be consistent across the board, suggesting that while there is a certain segment of the student body opting out of QPIRG and Radio CKUT for ideological reasons, blanket opt outs account for the majority of the numbers.

Additionally, opt-out rates have steadily increased since the current online system was introduced in 2007, which reflects growing awareness of the existence of the opt-out system.

Taken together, this suggests that the only thing standing between most students and blanket opt outs is knowledge of the opt-out system. Those of us in the campus political bubble tend to overestimate campus engagement. The number of students who think carefully about which fees to opt out of is probably relatively small.

We also overestimate our influence outside of a limited population of engaged students. Keep in mind that to blanket opt out one has to opt out of each fee individually and navigate past a page explaining what each fee is for. If students are ignoring the information about the fees on Minerva, will a Facebook page really make a difference?

Those students who are likely to pay close attention are those that already know plenty about opt outs, while those that blanket opt out are just as likely to ignore the campaign as the information on the Minerva opt-out page. I’d love to see the opt-in campaign stop the growth in blanket opt outs, but I’m not optimistic.