For the Students: USU Students Have the Highest Athletic Fees

A student referendum and two subsequent increases to the mandatory student athletic fee have led to Utah State students paying more than any other college in the state of Utah and the Mountain West Conference.

Recently, Aggie Radio did a comparison of what students across Utah and Mountain West Conference are paying to support their Athletics Departments. USU came in at the top of both lists. Here’s the information we compiled:

So why are Utah State students paying more than everyone else? Well, I hope to answer that question today. Basically, it comes down to two thing: 1. Students voted for them to be that high, and 2. By necessity, in order for our Athletics department to be competitive, students must foot the bill.

Before I get into why USU students pay more, I want to explain exactly what the Athletics Fee is.

Each USU student pays $135.14 every semester in mandatory athletics fees, which equates to just over four million dollars each year to the Athletics Department. That amount (as you can see in the graph above) has increased substantially in the past six years. The Athletic Department has dubbed this year “The climb.” I suppose it means that our competitiveness and influence are on the rise. No one can deny the fact that Utah State Athletics are improving, But that “climb” comes at a cost, and it’s students that are funding it. The $135.14 pays for anything from student athlete scholarships, to coaches’ salaries to marketing. The Athletics Department does not specify how student fees are used, just that they are added to the budget and the money gets spent when a need arises. Any further disclosure would be, as Athletics Vice President Scott Barnes puts it, “smoke and mirrors.” With no specificity to how certain funds are used, their budget looks like this:

 

 

From USU Budget Department

 

And, yes, that’s a deficit that you see, but the department has plans to get out of debt, by (you guessed it) increasing student fees.

Student fees make up a large portion of the total budget, but it wasn’t always that way. As you’ll notice in the above graph, in 2009, students were paying $56.75 in Athletic fees, then the fees increase sharply by $65.00. This increase was the result of a referendum that the student body voted on in 2009. It’s important to understand that, in 2009, the Athletics department was not what it is today. First of all, we were in the WAC (Western Athletic Conference), the same conference that is currently home to such powerhouse teams as the UMKC Kangaroos, the Bakersfield Roadrunners, and the UVU Whatever UVU’s mascot is (a bear with a tail, I think)? And even though we were were in a relatively weak conference, we were still losing. Our win percentage in 2008 was 46 percent, and that was in the WAC.

 

 

Students were upset that our teams couldn’t compete in even the very worst of conferences, so the Athletics Department proposed an increase in student fees to “increase competitiveness.” The proposed fee increase of $65.00 was the largest fee increase in the history of Utah State, and the increase alone was larger than any other fee at the time.  The results of the voting were close, some students thought the increase was too high, but in the end the students voted to increase the fee.

The increase worked. It worked better than anyone would have expected. The increase to the budget allowed us to compete at a higher level. In two years, we increased our win/loss ratio from 46 to 59 percent. We were doing so well that we effectively competed ourselves right out of the WAC and into the Mountain West. Of course, competing at the same level in the Mountain West required more money. The Athletics department asked for two more increases from the student fee board, which were granted, without question or debate. They probably didn’t know that those two increases led to us having the highest student fees in the conference.

That brings me to the second reason for which are student fees are so high and probably the reason why the fee board and the students in 2009 approved the increases: if Utah State is going to be competitive, students will have to pay for it.

When Utah State entered the Mountain West Conference, we did so with the lowest budget of any school. We also had the highest student fees. So, how is it possible that we have the lowest budget and highest fees? I asked Athletics Vice President Scott Barnes this question when I sat down with him for an interview, he said this:

“Because of the size of our student body, the size of our market, the size of our athletic venues, our ability to create extra revenue is not the same as it is in Fresno, or Boise, or other markets, so we have to be more reliant on student fees.”

He also added that Utah State has the ninth smallest athletic venue in the country.

As far as the Mountain West Conference is concerned, Utah State is a unique school. It has a relatively small student body compared to other colleges in the Mountain West. Cache Valley is a smaller and more isolated community than other schools as well. These two things make it difficult for USU athletics to generate revenue through things like ticket sales, donations, and sponsorships. In fact, even though we pay the highest student fees of any school in the Mountain West, the money generated from them only comes in fifth for income generated from student fees. In other words, we have less students paying more money to generate average revenues. Here’s another graph:

 

 

So, in order to be able to compete in the Mountain West Conference, USU students must pay more. It’s the cost to play in a conference that isn’t the WAC.

 

 

The most important point to remember, whether you like paying higher student fees or not, is this: Utah State Athletics has no right to be as good as it is. In a community and student body of our size, we should be competing at a much lower level. We should be playing UVU and UKMC in conference games and even losing to them occasionally. We should be, but we aren’t. We are winning back-to-back-to-back bowl games, and going to tournaments in a conference with schools twice our size and with twice the funding. Why? Because students wanted to have a great athletic program, and they pay for it.

I’ll only mention one more thing; the USU Athletics Department cannot sustain itself without further fee increases. So, in spite of the fact that we already pay way more than anyone else, we will probably end up paying even more. Here is the Athletics Department’s plan for the future:

 

 

 

While there will be no new fee increase this year, the department has proposed an increase next year, and every subsequent year until 2018. By 2018, students will be paying $158.11 every semester to support USU Athletics. This increase will help them get out of debt and also become more competitive.

If you ever wanted to know the price of having a good football and basketball team, here is your answer:

$158.11