stipends

Most student governments with large enough budgets pay their members - usually executive positions, but sometimes members of the student legislature are compensated too. Their stated purpose is foremost explained as a way to make sure working class students aren't shut out of student government roles. Stipend use is an easy fix, and as with most easy fixes, it's also a shoddy one.

They are usually too small to be effective, and still wind up as play money for elites

Many of the stipends I've seen are entirely too small to replace even one of the several jobs that most working class students have in order to afford school. And even when they are large enough, stipends are never pegged to the office holder's income and wealth - a task that'd just take a stroll to the Financial Aid office to determine. So therefore the upper class kids who have the time and resources to actually campaign for office get this money as just another perk of the office (and for the Future Bureaucrats of America™, that's a lesson they learn quickly). It also means incumbents have yet another material advantage over challengers. If there is a student government that does have a sliding scale stipend, please let me know. I'd love to learn more about it.