OPINION: UT-Tyler Double-Charges Students For Athletics

 

Years ago, when I wanted to know how the university worked, I went looking through all of the budgets for the student fees UT-Tyler charges its students. I was curious of where the money was going and of whether it was going to where it was supposed to. I wondered if anybody else even looked at these things. 

In my search, I discovered that the university funds a portion of its athletics program with money from another student fee, namely The Student Services Fee.  

According to the university’s FY21 operating budget, UT-Tyler planned to spend $154,912 dollars of Student Services Fee money to fund “Athletics” ” as well as $69,575 for “Athletics Marketing”. Here is the layout of the Student Services Fee FY21 budget:

 
This surprised me because the athletics program already has a separate, mandatory fee called The Intercollegiate Athletics Fee. This fee charges students for athletics program expenses (at least, one would think so). So what is going on with the athletics program getting money from The Student Services Fee? 

It turns out that this practice is somewhat common among some Texas universities. UT-Dallas and UT-Permian Basin also use some of their Student Services Fee money to fund portions of athletics (although, of the universities I’ve checked, UT-Tyler seems to do this the most). 

So does this make it right? I do not believe it does. Instead, I believe this practice lacks legal authority from the legislature and in addition to this is just overall unethical. This does not mean that the concealment of athletic funding in The Student Services Fee is intentional, but at least below UT-Tyler's best ideals. 

Therefore, I would like to use this post to explain why I believe these things and in the end respectfully call upon UT-Tyler to end this unethical and possibly unauthorized practice of using student money from another fee to fund intercollegiate athletics. 

WHY THIS MATTERS

I am sure university administrators would agree that the student body deserves transparency, especially if students are to accurately evaluate whether or not to approve an upcoming fee increase to the athletics program. Without transparency, students don't have the accurate information to evaluate the real cost of athletics to their lives. So with the athletics program getting money from another fee, under a different name, while also receiving money from its own fee, it is important for students to know the real cost to themselves for the athletics program at UT-Tyler. This is why this discussion matters. 

So let's get into it: why UT-Tyler should end its use of Student Services Fee money for athletics. 

THE LEGAL ASPECT

1. First of all, UT-Tyler should end its use of Student Services Fee money to fund athletics because it does not appear to have the legal authority to do so. (Sounds better than “illegal”, doesn’t it?) 

First, let’s lay some groundwork for our discussion and discuss where the authority to charge student fees comes from. 

SOME FIRST PRINCIPLES

Since UT-Tyler is a public institution, this means that it derives its authority for how it can operate from the Texas People. What I mean is, this People invested their power to self-govern into representatives whom they send to Austin and together collectively make up the Texas Legislature. This Legislature decreed years ago that, in the name of the People, the state should create The University of Texas in Austin, which later expanded into the University of Texas System.UT-Tyler is now an extension of that system.  

Now, this is relevant because the authority to run the university comes from the law established by the Legislature. The Texas Education Code is that portion of Texas law that outlines what universities have permission to do and what they are prohibited to do according to its “masters”, so to speak, The Texas Legislature. Make sense? So, the university’s authority comes from Texas the Legislature which it outlines in the written law. 

Now, in this law, The Texas Education Code, is instruction on how UT-Tyler may operate when it comes to collecting student fees. It is from this law—Texas law—that the university gets its authorization to collect student fees.

Note that in this particular case, Chapter 54, Sec. 503.a.1. authorizes UT-Tyler to collect a fee from the student body for what the law defines as “Student Services.” 

Here is the text of the law:

Sec. 54.503.  STUDENT SERVICES FEES.  (a)  For the purposes of this section:

(1)  "Student services" means activities which are separate and apart from the regularly scheduled academic functions of the institution and directly involve or benefit students, including textbook rentals, recreational activities, health and hospital services, medical services, intramural and intercollegiate athletics, artists and lecture series, cultural entertainment series, debating and oratorical activities, student publications, student government, the student fee advisory committee, student transportation services other than services under Sections 54.504, 54.511, 54.512, and 54.513 of this code, and any other student activities and services specifically authorized and approved by the governing board of the institution of higher education.  The term does not include services for which a fee is charged under another section of this code.

(2)  "Compulsory fee" means a fee that is charged to all students enrolled at the institution.

(3)  "Voluntary fee" means a fee that is charged only to those students who make use of the student service for which the fee is established.

THREE WAYS THE LAW DEFINES STUDENT SERVICES

Now, notice that the law defines the term in three ways: 1) firstly, abstractly, 2) secondly, with concretely and then 3) thirdly negatively. Let’s look at all three more closely.

1) Abstractly. According to the statute, the term “student services” means “ activities which are separate and apart from the regularly scheduled academic functions of the institution and directly involve or benefit students…..” That’s the abstract definition.  

2) Concretely. After the text defines its term abstractly, then it defines it again with examples of what the term means when it states,  “including, textbook rentals, etc.” (emphasis mine). So, these are examples to help us grasp what the Legislature means when it says “student services”. 

3) Negatively. Finally, the text reads, “The term does not include services for which a fee is charged under another section of this code.” This is an exclusion. By this, I read the Legislature to say, “All this means stuff we already wrote is a student service, but anything that is like this is not” (meaning, any service with a fee under another section of the code). The statement is a definition in the negative, or in other words, a definition of what a student service is not. 

So, with an abstract, concrete and negative definition, the Legislature gives us a clear grasp what does and does not fall under the definition of a student service. It is this way so that both universities and students alike may know when the university has authorization to act under the legislature's permission and when it does not. So we have this understanding thanks to the written law.

APPLYING THIS DEFINITION TO UT-TYLER

Now, how can this law guide us when it comes to understanding UT-Tyler's actions to require students to pay for part of the athletics program through The Student Services Fee? 

I believe the answer is in the exclusionary statement that the legislature wrote into the last paragraph of the student services statute. It reads, “The term does not include services for which a fee is charged under another section of this code.”

Now, that describes the athletics program, doesn't it? "A service for which another fee is charged under another section of this code"? Isn't this athletics? We know intercollegiate athletics is a "service" because the definition of student services quoted above lists "intercollegiate athletics" as one in the examples. "'Student services' means activities…including…intercollegiate athletics.” (Sec. 54.503.)

Therefore, according to the definition in the student services statute, intercollegiate athletics is a service, and if it is a service, for which fee is charged under another section of the code (see Sec. 54.5342), then it is excluded from student services money. That is, intercollegiate athletics falls falling outside of the definition of a qualifying service in this provision of the law and is therefore ineligible for student services money. 

This means that the current practice is unauthorized should therefore end. Athletics should no longer receive Student Services Fee money.

SO THE DEBATE'S OVER…RIGHT? 

Now, this should settle the debate, right? I mean, I feel it is pretty clear that money for athletics from Student Services Fee is prohibited, right? 

Nevertheless, there may still be some observers who object. After all, I’m not a lawyer. What do I know?  

So let’s just say it’s not illegal. Okay? Let's go along. 

So then, if it is no legal (if it is not illegal), then let me ask this: is charging students under two separate fees for the same thing ethical? Or to put it another way, is it okay to charge someone for one thing while calling it another thing? Should I charge you an extra fee for textbooks while the cost of textbooks is already included in your tuition?

I believe this would be unethical. Therefore, let me briefly—very briefly—try to make a case why the practice should stop even if it is somehow legal.

IT IS AT LEAST UNETHICAL

UT-Tyler’s practice of dipping into the student services fee to fund athletics, if not illegal, is at least unethical for a few reasons.  

First of all, it is deceptive. (Perhaps, it is at least misleading—even if it does not intend to be.)  

VIOLATES THE NORM

It is misleading because it violates the norm that is in place with other student fees. That is, every other fee in the student schedule is “one fee, one service.” For example, one Medical Services Fee is for one service. (The campus clinic.) One Fine & Performing Arts Fee is for one service. (The Cowan Center.) One Technology Fee is for one service. (IT infrastructure.) Every other student fee operates by the normative principle that there is one fee for one service.  

Therefore, when the university effectively charges two fees for one service (when it charges both a Student Services Fee AND an Intercollegiate Athletics Fee for one athletics program), then it misleads the fee-payer into thinking he is still paying as he has in every other instance (one fee for one service) when he is not. Instead, in this case, the university deviates from the norm, but does not tell the fee-payer forthright that it is doing so. In the meantime, it gets away with deceiving the student (even if unintentionally) by charging him twice for athletics while maintaining the guise of one fee (the athletics fee). It deviates from the norm and so deceives the fee-paying student. 

Therefore, due to the deception or perhaps misleading nature about it all, this practice appears rather unethical. To avoid this, the university should immediately forego providing any money to the athletics program from the student services fee and require athletics to rely solely upon its own stand-alone fee for student funding. 

DISCLOSURE IS NECESSARY 

Lastly, if you still don’t believe that it is unethical, then let me say this. The whole point of the university disclosing to the student what fees it charges him and for what purposes is so that the university can remain accountable for where it gets its authority to charge students fees at all: the student body. Let me explain.

Most of the student fees the legislature authorized require the institution (the university) to first obtain the approval of a majority of student voters in election before it can ever charge the fee. This means that even though final authority lies with the legislature, the legislature gives the institution the "okay" to charge students a fee only on the condition that the student body approves of it.  

Therefore, when the university publishes its fee structure online and explains to the student why it requires him to either pay up or give up an education, it is doing so is in part to demonstrate to the paying student that the university is operating at the direction of the collective student constituency. That is, under the authority that it already obtained from the student body in a previous election. In other words, it is doing the student government's bidding by collecting a fee, not its own, just like an employer withholds tax money from an employee, though it is not the federal government. 

If the university didn't demonstrate that it was operating under the student body's authority, then its activity to impose a fee on top of tuition would be illegitimate because it would be unable cite a justifiable purpose for requiring that the student pay an additional cost in addition to tuition. It shows that it is doing it for and in the service of the student body that commissioned it to collect a fee on its behalf. So the university has an ethical obligation to reveal to the student body where it gets it authority from and that when it collects fees in addition to tuition it operates in service of the student body. 

This is why the university neglects its ethical duty if it does not disclose to the student that the student services fee also goes to pay for athletics. Being under authority, the university must justify itself when it goes to collect a fee outside of tuition. It has an obligation to justify why it imposes an additional fee outside of what the legislature authorize. This is why it has a duty to disclose if the fees are not transparent. This is the case with The Student Services Fee and athletics. Since it does not do this, the practice is unethical. So the university must end its practice. 

CONCLUSION

The university has an obligation to be transparent to the fee-paying student. It also has an obligation to abide within the law. I believe that by charging two fees for one student service, the university has misled the fee-paying student and exceeded the authority granted to it by the legislature to charge student fees. Students must know the true cost of athletics if they are to properly evaluate the coming proposition that the student body consent to an increase in its fee. Therefore, the university should cease this practice immediately and require that the athletics program, like every other student service with separate fee, rely upon the revenue it generates from its stand-alone student fee.

Twitter: @JHescock12 

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