A bill that would have made college athletics fees optional for students in Virginia failed to gain approval Monday in the senate higher education subcommittee.
A college’s athletics fee typically pays for a student’s admission to intercollegiate sporting events and ranges from $326 annually at Virginia Tech to $3,650 at Virginia Military Institute. Students are required to pay whether they attend games or not.
Supporters of the bill, which was sponsored by Bill DeSteph, R-Virginia Beach, questioned how colleges could justify charging an athletics fee the past semester when most teams weren’t playing.
College representatives countered that cutting the fee would be detrimental to athletics departments and that students are afforded benefits by their college sports even if they don’t attend games.
Because of the pandemic, all but three colleges in the state canceled fall football season. Some basketball teams also canceled their winter seasons.
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Most universities charged their athletic fees anyway. At the University of Virginia, students who took classes completely online were allowed to pay just half of the $678 total. While UVA’s football team played on, students were not allowed to attend games.
“Is it fair for them to continue to pay these fees when they’re not getting what they paid for?” asked Stacie Gordon of the Partners for College Affordability and Public Trust.
Peter Blake, head of the State Council for Higher Education, said athletics serve as advertisements for colleges, which benefit students. Plus the fees support paying for facilities, scholarships and debt. If fees were made optional, colleges would have fewer facilities and scholarships to offer.
Elizabeth Hooper, director of state relations at Virginia Tech, said if students are allowed to pick and choose which programs they support, they jeopardize the economic health of more than just a football team. A recent study concluded that Virginia Tech brings $69 million in economic impact to southwest Virginia through hotels, restaurants, taxes and other means. Most of that money, she said, is generated by the football team.
At Virginia Commonwealth University, the school’s $910 athletic fee amounts to more than 50% of the athletics operating budget, said Ashley Hood, the school’s director of government relations. Making the fee optional would create dire consequences, she said. VCU currently allows 25 students to attend each men’s basketball home game.
According to a 2020 report by NBC News, Virginia has some of the most expensive athletics fees in the country, with VMI at No. 1, James Madison University at No. 3 and six Virginia colleges in the top seven, based on the 2017-18 school year. Radford derives 81% of its athletics department revenue from student fees, the second highest total nationally.
There is a cap on how much a university can increase its athletics fee. It cannot raise the cost of its non-educational fees by more than 3% annually unless it meets certain exemptions.