The College Fix reported that the results of an online poll showed that a majority of UCLA students thought spending $300,000 to bring Hillary Clinton to campus was a waste of money.
The poll, conducted by the Daily Bruin, phrased the question as, “Hillary Clinton’s recent $300,000 paycheck for speaking at the Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership has captured the attention of news outlets around the country. What do these large fees for notable speakers say about UCLA and the Luskin lecture series?”
Of the 271 people that voted, 48 percent thought that the large sums of money were “inappropriate and demonstrate poor prioritizing.” Another 27 percent viewed that large sums as “unfortunate, but without them UCLA might not obtain the same level of notable speakers for the lecture.”
A contrasting view was represented by 21 percent who thought that “the school was right to invest in” the speech, and 4 percent were undecided.
The Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership is funded by Meyer Hoskin, who has donated to President Barack Obama’s campaign.
Conrad Contreras, vice president of the Underground Student Association Council, told the Daily Bruin that “it’s difficult to see that UCLA is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to someone who is already wealthy when I have friends and families working countless hours to stay in higher education.”
Hillary Clinton donated the money earned from the speech to the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.