I was heavily involved in LSU Student Government for almost three years during my time here. 

SG has caught a lot of flak since last week’s announcement that it would be drastically decreasing the number of free Scantrons it hands out.

Instead of making the Scantrons available at all times, SG decided to limit them to only midterms and finals week.

Of the maybe 70 percent of LSU students who know SG exists, I bet most of them are primarily aware of the organization because of the free Scantrons.

SG has a lot of programs you should care about. Whether they’re good or bad, they’re using a lot of your money.

But back to the Scantrons. 

So why would it cut itz star program?

It’s cutting the program because people are taking advantage of the Scantrons’ “free” nature, making them way too expensive to fund.

I have personally witnessed students walk in the SG office, look around to see who’s watching, grab a stack of 20 Scantrons and run out.

SG President Taylor Cox told me that Greek chapters require their members to each bring five Scantrons to chapter houses.

Through my own admittedly small-sample, unscientific and otherwise unusable polling, I’ve determined that it’s true — at least for some of the Greek organizations.

But some professors are getting in on the action.

In classes that require blue book testing, some professors are telling their students to bring multiple blue books to class at the beginning of the semester.

This is done so the professors can inspect and hand out the blue books for each test themselves in an effort to prevent cheating.

Even worse, some professors send their teaching assistants to the SG office before tests to grab a stack of Scantrons and sell them for money — and one assumes other, non-monetary payment can also be arranged when such petty behavior is involved.

The most obvious answer is to staff the desk where the Scantrons are kept to ensure students take only what they need.

This is difficult to do, though, as SG workers are usually not paid like students in other departments, so it can be difficult to have someone staffing the desk at all times.

Another solution Cox said SG looked into was allotting a certain number of Scantrons and blue books to each college instead of trying to directly hand them all out.

This seems like an excellent idea, but, according to Cox, they were given high numbers by those colleges when asked how many they needed.

Having said all that, SG needs to find a way to fund the program.

The ideal method is funding it through sponsorships, but that’s unreliable and will vary from year to year.

Cox said SG is also looking into having the materials directly funded through college council, but the college councils would have to agree.

Perhaps the best solution is one it has already explored — the one mentioned above that would let the colleges hand out the Scantrons.

Instead of asking them how much they need, SG should consider putting their criminally underused economic advisers on the non-sarcastically difficult task of figuring it out themselves.

Whatever they decide to do, they need to make the chosen remedy clear and publicly establish a plan of action — and Cox needs to make sure he works with the incoming SG president during the transition to make it happen.