Political anything can have negative connotation to many people.

I am aware of cases in democratic student governments where political participation has increased in response to a lack of trust in current governance structures or a lack of student autonomy, which could make a sudden increase in political participation (election turnout, annual general meeting turnout, etc.) an indicator of declining student trust in their student government.

However, I would not say that higher political participation is necessarily a factor in declining quality of a student government, since the increase in political participation in response to growing distrust is often in itself a positive force for reform that increases the quality of student democracy and corrects organizational issues. Moreover, a consistently high voter turnout is definitely an indicator of a good quality student government, as this means more students are actively involved in the political process and thus can be more easily mobilized for advocacy initiatives to reform their education institution or push for change in their larger society.