The Chronicle of Higher Education Date: September 21, 1994 Section: Athletics Page: A43 Paying for Athletics

NCAA's Division I and II colleges rely on student fees to fill holes in sports budgets

By Katherine S. Mangan

Students at the University of California at Davis would rather dig deeper into their own pockets than see varsity teams cut from the sports program.

When they learned last spring that Davis planned to eliminate 12 of its 20 teams, the students voted to increase their mandatory student fees by $100 a year to keep the program intact.

The higher fees, approved by regents in July, will be phased in over the next two years. This year, students will pay $127 for athletics, $42 more than last year.

Students at Davis are not alone. With the rising costs of athletics programs and the pressure to expand sports opportunities for women, more institutions are passing the expenses on to students.

While students at Davis took on the extra charges willingly, fees for sports have proved divisive on other campuses, pitting students who say they are being unfairly taxed against administrators and athletes who say their programs can't survive without the subsidies.

A study released last month by the National Collegiate Athletic Association found that student fees unrelated to admission to sporting events accounted for a growing proportion of the sports budget at the average college in the N.C.A.A.'s Divisions I and II.

In 1989, student fees that did not pay for tickets made up 3 per cent of an athletics department's revenues at the average college in Division I-A. Last year, that proportion had grown to 6 per cent, according to the N.C.A.A. In Divisions I-AA and I-AAA, the averages rose from 14 and 17 per cent, respectively, in 1989, to 25 and 32 per cent, respectively, in 1993. The N.C.A.A. also found that colleges in Division II relied more heavily on student fees last year than they had five years ago.

Only among Division III colleges did the proportion of athletics-department revenues from student fees decrease. In 1989, fees unrelated to admissions to games accounted for 27 per cent of the revenues at Division III colleges that sponsor football. By 1993, the proportion had shrunk to 12 per cent. At Division III colleges without football teams the proportion dropped slightly from 35 per cent to 32 per cent.

Daniel L. Fulks, who conducted the N.C.A.A.'s latest study, said the comparisons between the 1989 and 1993 results might be skewed because of differences in the studies' survey questions. But he said it was likely that, over all, students on more campuses are paying higher fees for sports.

At most colleges, students are required to pay fees of various amounts in addition to tuition. Libraries, health services, and dining halls are among the typical beneficiaries, along with athletics programs. Some institutions charge as little as $10 a year, while others charge hundreds.

In many states, tuition increases are capped, but student fees are not, which means that as costs rise they are often passed on to students in the form of higher fees.

Fees play an especially large role in states that prohibit public institutions from using state money for intercollegiate athletics. Virginia, for one, does not permit state colleges to use tuition or general revenues for sports, so many institutions impose high athletics fees.

At James Madison University, about $800 of each student's fees go to the sports department. The fees account for about 80 percent of the university's $8.2-million athletics budget.

John Thelin, the co-author of a book about academics and athletics in higher education, said colleges depend too much on student fees to finance sports programs.

"My general sense is that the student fee is a convenient device to allow universities to do things they couldn't do with tuition or other revenues," said Mr. Thelin, a professor of the history of higher education and philanthropy at Indiana University at Bloomington.

He said that by turning to students to help balance their budgets, universities "are continually taxing a captive group."

Other critics of fees agree with Mr. Thelin that they are a form of taxation without representation.

Laura McClintock, legislative director for the United States Students Association in Washington, said that those who help keep athletics programs afloat should have more say in how the programs are run.

"My concern was not only that the fees were so high, but that students had little or no control over how the money was spent," said Ms. McClintock. "There are a lot of students who never went to a football or a basketball game, and they were amazed at how much they were paying for athletics."

Scott Simpson, a senior at the College of William and Mary, said he was shocked to learn from The Chronicle that he was paying $660 a year for athletics.

"I figured it was about $50 a year or so," he said. "I don't think most students have any idea how much they're paying."

Some students at other colleges -- who do know how much of their student fee goes to sports -- say it is not their job to pay for sports or to bail out programs that are in debt.

At the University of Wisconsin, students are still paying a $20-a-year fee that was imposed in 1989 as a short-term measure to help erase a $2-million deficit in the athletics department's budget.

The deficit was eliminated last year, but the fee won't be lifted until next September.

"The athletics department developed the deficit because of mismanagement, and students don't think they should have to pay for it," said David Stacy, president of an association that represents the state's student governments.

Mr. Stacy and other critics acknowledge that fees pay for a variety of campus services, not just sports. But they say that while most students use the dining halls, the infirmaries, and the recreation centers, not everyone is interested in attending sporting events.

Students at the University of Colorado at Boulder say the problem could be solved if the institution, instead of taxing everyone equally, collected more money from sports fans by charging them higher ticket prices.

At Boulder, athletics fees were imposed in 1980, supposedly temporarily, to help retire a shortfall in the athletics department. But instead of being phased out, the fee has risen from $20 to $57 a year.

Bill Marolt, Colorado's athletics director, said the fees provided a steady source of cash that allowed the university to build up its sports programs for women, among other things.

Every year, students pay $1.2-million in fees to a $16-million athletics budget.

To give students a better idea of how their money is spent, Boulder is setting up a nine-member student group this fall that will meet monthly with Mr. Marolt.

"It will primarily be a way for me to interact more fully with students," he said.

Students aren't the only ones who complain. Athletics departments often end up in a tug-of-war with other campus services that rely on the fees.

At Utah Valley State College, for example, student leaders last year proposed cutting the amount of money that goes to athletics by one third and shifting it to the library. The students argued that in a time of scarce resources, academics were more important than athletics, and that their library needed to be upgraded.

After athletics officials protested that a cut that big would force them to dismantle part of their program, students agreed to a smaller shift, $1 a year per student. That resulted in a cut of $10,000 from the sports budget, which the department absorbed by reducing administrative expenses. Now the department receives $28 a year from each student, and the library receives $7.

Supporters of mandatory fees for athletics say that students often get benefits such as free tickets and free use of athletics facilities. They also argue that students should be willing to contribute to athletics departments because a strong sports program is an important part of a university that attracts fans, alumni, and potential donors.

"Nothing brings people together like athletics. It's really a backbone of the university," said Scott Brayton, who heads a group that represents team captains at the University of California at Davis.

If students at Davis had not voted to pay a higher athletics fee, a number of men's sports, including wrestling, swimming, golf, and water polo would have been cut.

"There are a lot of student athletes on our campus, and they were very active in supporting this fee," Mr. Brayton said. "Students want to be sure that these programs will be available in the future."

But raising fees to save teams may not be the answer on every campus. A report released last year by the National Association of College and University Business Officers warned institutions against continually passing on to students the costs of running a sports program.

"Institutions," the report said, "must ensure that they do not lose control of the price of attendance by relying too heavily on student fees as a revenue source for athletics."