End Student Funding For College Athletics

 

With the fall semester beginning soon, the question from the last semester remains: what’s going to happen with the athletics fee? Last semester, UT-Tyler Athletics Director Howard Patterson approached student government with a request to raise the mandatory fee from $240 dollars max per semester to $300 dollars max per semester. Student government did not put the fee on the spring ballot, but Patterson said he would return to request the increase in the future because the funding was important to the athletics program. 

So will students have to consider a fee increase sometime this year? At this point, the future is unsure, but whatever happens, the position student government should take is clear, and it is this: student government should end all student funding for athletics. Here are three reasons why. 

There's Little Benefit In Paying An Athletics Fee 

The first reason why student government should abolish student funding for athletics is that the individual student receives little-to-no benefit from an athletics program. Therefore, he has no obligation to fund the program through a mandatory fee. 

For example, athletics program advocates say athletic programming plays an important role in university life. They say that having an athletics program can result in higher graduation rates and increased student enrollment, among other benefits. However, these benefits are for the university, not for the fee-paying student. 

In other words, better graduation rates, higher tuition revenue--all of these benefit the university, rather than contribute to the personal success of the individual student who pays the fee. These don't help him with his homework nor pay for his basic on-campus medical needs. Instead, this fee benefits the university. Therefore, student government should protect the student from paying a fee he receives little-to-no benefit from by abolishing the fee. 

More Success, Higher Fee

The second reason why student government should end student funding for athletics is that athletic success leads to higher athletics fees. In other words, the more success the athletics program obtains, the more the university will want to spend on athletics. Practically speaking, this means the student fees for athletics will go up—or that the university will want to make them go up so it can have more funding for the program. If the athletics program becomes successful, then it will need more money and will turn to the student fee. In the end, this model lends only to rising costs for participation in an athletics fee. The student is in a losing situation. Therefore, student government should stop students from having to fund the athletics program. 

More Students, Smaller Return

Finally, the third reason why student government should end student funding for the athletics program is that when student enrollment increases, the value from the athletics program reaches fewer students. Let me explain. When an athletics program succeeds, student enrollment increases (so the thinking goes), but an increase in student population means that there are even more people athletics has to return value to who participate in the fee. To put it another way, there are basically more mouths to feed and more students to whom the athletics program needs to serve. 

However, this is impossible. As more students enter the student population, the dollars earned through the athletics programs--the merchandise, the ticket sales, the sponsorships, etc.--spread thinner over many people than it would have had the student population remained unchanged. In other words, students get less and less value from athletics in return as more and more students enter the student population. With increased enrollment, the distribution of value from the athletics program spreads to fewer and fewer students who pay the fee. This is why student government should get the student body out of this situation and end all student funding to athletics.   

Conclusion

Overall, student funding for an intercollegiate athletics program makes little sense when one looks at the situation from the perspective of a student who pays the fee. The student receives few traceable benefits for his sacrifice, his fee gets more expensive with athletic success, and he experiences diminishing returns with growths in the student population. With all of this in view, student government should abolish the mandatory athletics fee and end student funding for UT-Tyler's intercollegiate athletics program. 

Feature Image: Tiger.net via Flickr