The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an interesting study of the extent to which mandatory student fees fund the cost of college athletic programs. The report includes tables with details for most public (but not private) Universities. See below for the example of UNCC where mandatory student fees account for about half of UNCC athletic department revenues.
The $10-Billion Sports Tab
How College Students Are Funding the Athletics Arms Race
chronicle.com
11/15/15
...A river of cash is flowing into college sports, financing a spending spree among elite universities that has sent coaches’ salaries soaring and spurred new discussions about whether athletes should be paid. But most of that revenue is going to a handful of elite sports programs, leaving colleges like Georgia State to rely heavily on students to finance their athletic ambitions.
In the past five years, public universities pumped more than $10.3 billion in mandatory student fees and other subsidies into their sports programs, according to an examination by The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Huffington Post. The review included an inflation-adjusted analysis of financial reports provided to the NCAA by 201 public universities competing in Division I, information that was obtained through public-records requests.
The average athletic subsidy that these colleges and their students have paid to their athletic departments increased 16 percent during that time. Student fees, which accounted for nearly half of all subsidies, increased by 10 percent...
UNC Charlotte Total subsidies
Earned revenue 2014 $9,131,902
Total subsidies $20,459,306
Institutional subsidies $5,201,022
Student fees $15,258,284
Direct state government support $0
Earned Revenue $9,131,902
NCAA distributions $1,717,783
Royalties $672,614
Ticket sales $1,855,994
Other revenue $4,885,511
Total athletic funding $29,591,208
Why are you posting this I'll tell you why. Because you're scared and you're going to run back to the ACC with your tail between your legs because that conference is the only thing that gives Weak any sort of legitimacy at all as a sports program, which is funny because the ACC is totally bereaved of any legitimacy anymore (not that it had any to begin with). I'm sorry that your football team had a hundred year head start on our and still isn't any better than our. But with the number of students that we have and the amazing growth of of our university and the ability to attract Top Flite students to the school, you know that we're going to dwarf you and that our athletic department will continue to grow even with just nominal fees. My school is a total bargan compared to Weak and I got just as good of an education at Charlotte with more diversity too. And I didn't have to live in Winston-Salem.
UNC Charlotte is just one of many schools that charge every student a fee to support intercollegiate sports, which effectively means a fee to support football. How much? According to an August 28 article in The Charlotte Business Journal every UNCC Charlotte student pays $320 per year, $200 of which is a general athletics fee and $120 of which is to pay off the debt on UNCC's $45M football stadium. Last year the fees totaled $4.7M which covered 60% of the football program's $7.8M in expenses.
Looking at the tables included in the Chronicle article, I was surprised to see how much revenue comes from "subsidies" (i.e. student fees) for many Power 5 conference schools (all of which receive huge amounts of TV money compared to a school like UNCC).
For example, according to the Chronicle, 15.8% or $13.2M of UVa's $83.7M sports budget comes from student fees. I wondered whether the mandatory student fee for athletics was really high enough to contribute so much money to the sports program. The answer is yes. There are about 21,000 students at UVa. $13.2M divided by 21,000 = $628.57.
According to UVa's website, the mandatory annual athletics fee for all students (undergrad and grad) enrolled in a degree program is $657.
Other examples:
Alabama's $153M sports program gets only $6M from student fees (but is it really necessary to squeeze all students for that extra $6M for such a rich sports program?)
Maryland gets $18.1M from student fees to help fund its $73.4M sports program and Rutgers gets $36.3M in subsidies to help fund its $76.6M sports program.
Texas is one of the few schools that receives no subsidy. Its sports budget is an astounding $161M.
Wake Forest charges relatively few fees in addition to its $47.1K annual tuition. However for students in the College of A&S, there is a "student activity fee" of $186/year. I wonder what that covers? Whatever it covers, it would not add up to much money (less than $1M), given that the number of students in the College is small.
Nevertheless, it's probable that the sports program at Wake does not pay for itself and that the university's budget contains a subsidy for sports (though such a subsidy is not revealed in WFU's annual financial report).
Yeah. I'm not sure there's a big problem with this. Like Dixie said the fee goes to things student use that would likely cost more on a pay as you go basis.
Football costs are out of control but charging students for a major part of the campus experience and including free to low cost student tickets is not a problem.
My senior year at Charlotte they held a student referendum on increasing student fees by a couple hundred dollars (maybe $200) in order to fund the football team. It passed overwhelming, somewhere around 70-30 I believe.
Wake Forest charges relatively few fees in addition to its $47.1K annual tuition. However for students in the College of A&S, there is a "student activity fee" of $186/year. I wonder what that covers? Whatever it covers, it would not add up to much money (less than $1M), given that the number of students in the College is small.
Guessing that's a fee to cover expenses unique to that academic program. If you're an engineering or science student, the university-provided resources you will use for your studies (equipment, laboratories, etc) obviously greatly exceed the resources needed by an English or political science student, so the university charges a fee to applicable students to cover those extra expenses. Has nothing to do with sports.