Talk about sharing the wealth.

Newly implemented this semester, Penn State has adopted a policy which offers all student group leaders the opportunity to apply for university-allocated scholarships.

Prior to fall 2005, only the executive members of the Undergraduate Student Government, the Graduate Student Association (GSA), the Council of Commonwealth Student Government, the University Park Allocation Committee and the four greek councils were eligible for the 12.5 stipends, worth $10,408 each.

The old policy excluded all other groups from any chance of obtaining university scholarship money. No political, religious, multi-cultural, activist or service groups had access to these stipends.

Now, the leaders of groups such as College Republicans, Amnesty International, Young Americans for Freedom, the Chinese Friendship Association, Penn State Hillel and Habitat for Humanity, among many others, can receive a stipend from the university. Even the presidents of groups such as the Big Foot Society or the Monty Python Society are eligible.

The new policy does enforce a certain level of accountability now that scholarships are awarded to individuals, as opposed to groups. Before, the leaders of the eight groups were entrusted with fairly distributing the funds among other executive members. But is it really fair to hand over thousands of dollars to student-elected leaders in the hopes that they'll be evenly and fairly distributed?

There are negative aspects to the new application process that are important to analyze. GSA, which lost 92 percent of its scholarship money this semester, must restructure its entire organization to compensate for the loss of executive members who resigned from their positions to seek better-paying jobs.

The new policy has probably already ousted some students who were only in it for the money. Some students in GSA left the organization because they depended on that financial support. And students may eventually leave other organizations for the same reason.

With over 600 student groups on campus and 54 scholarships awarded thus far, Penn State must still be exclusive when distributing the available funds. Only student leaders who actively work to make a noticeable difference should receive the $1,000 scholarships. And this will weed out those who don't have the best interests of their group at heart, and will ultimately motivate others to work harder.

Fortunately the new policy seems to benefit most students without the ramifications that a drastic change could produce, but in the future the university needs to be wary of the manner in which they carry out such changes.