Student contributions help fund collegiate athletic programs
By Roy Ockert Jr.
Sept. 22, 2013
College football is well under way this fall, and the followers of some teams are already lamenting their lack of success. Fortunately, our hometown Red Wolves from Arkansas State University are not among that class. While we ASU fans suffered through some down years, the last few have raised our enthusiasm and expectations.
One thing we should all remember — and one thing that is too often forgotten — is that college athletics are played by students and are primarily for students. Alumni and others can support our favorite collegiate teams, but we need to be careful not to “professionalize” them.
That’s becoming harder and harder to do because of the cost of major-college football and basketball.
Only about two dozen of the universities across the nation have athletic programs that are considered financially self-sustaining — that is, they don’t rely on student fees or institutional funds to pay for the programs. The University of Arkansas is one of those, the only one in the state. All the rest charge students an athletic fee, and almost all also transfer some educational and general funds to support their athletic budgets.
E&G funds come mostly from tuition and tax revenues. The state sets a limit for such transfers at about $1.2 million currently.
Neither practice is necessarily a bad thing, if done with the students in mind. Students can and should participate in intercollegiate athletics, whether as competitors, members of auxiliary groups such as the band or cheerleaders or as spectators. Athletic events are usually important social events on campus. The fact that some students do not choose to participate is irrelevant. Some also never use the library, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t contribute to its operation. Heck, I don’t use the public schools much any more, but I still pay property taxes.
And every university, as well as the community it’s in, benefits from its athletic programs. Like it or not, sports programs, especially the successful ones, attract attention, financial contributions and more students.
It’s important, though, that we keep track of what the public institutions do to finance their athletic programs, and the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board is charged with that responsibility in our state. Each year the board examines a report compiled from a form called “Certification of Budgeted Revenues and Expenditures,” which each college and university must submit by June 15.
The board approved the 2013-14 report during its July meeting with one dissenting voice — Kaneaster Hodges of Newport, who annually votes against its approval after criticizing the student athletics fees.
The UA-Fayetteville program is in a class by itself, as the report always shows. Its 2013-14 total budget is just under $70 million, while all 12 other state institutions with athletic programs total almost $56 million. Furthermore, UAF revenue sources are exclusively athletics-related — 84 percent from athetics-generated revenues and the remaining 16 percent from “Other Athletic Income,” such as foundations, clubs and private gifts.
At that, UAF officials expect a profit of nearly $12 million. (Perhaps some of that can be used to offset the excesses of its Advancement Division.) All the other programs project that they will spend every dollar they take in.
ASU-Jonesboro’s total budget is about $14.2 million, which comes from the following sources: athletic-generated revenues, 33.6 percent; student athletic fees, 31.8 percent; other auxiliary profits (concessions, sale of merchandise, textbook sales, etc.), 14.9 percent; other athletic income, 11.1 percent; and E&G transfer, 8.6 percent.
ASU-J and the University of Central Arkansas at Conway charge the highest student athletic fees — $17 per credit hour. That means a student carrying a normal load of 15 hours is required to contribute $510 to the athletic program during the current academic year.
That $17 fee is now just above the $16.66 charged to students at UA-Little Rock, which competed against ASU-J in the Sun Belt Conference but doesn’t have a football team.
The ASU-J fee is pretty good deal for a student who attends athletic events, even just once a week, since there is no additional cost for tickets at ASU-Jonesboro (UA-F students are allowed to buy “access passes” to football and basketball games for $85 each).
However, university officials need to keep in mind the value of students in terms of both finances and participation when setting policies and practices. That hasn’t always been the case in seating assignments for basketball games and now for football games. Students should have some of the prime seats for all athletic events since they contribute a major portion of the operating revenue — an estimated $4.5 million for this school year.
We do want them to be there and to be loud.
That’s actually a smaller percentage than shown in last year’s report, and so is the percentage for athletic-generated revenue. The increases will come from auxiliary profits and other athletic income. The latter, i.e. alumni contributions, is especially important is the university is to raise its programs and prestige to the next level.
Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.