San Diego State proposes increased student fees to offset athletic department’s budget deficit

With its athletic department awash in red ink and state budget cuts looming, San Diego State wants to further tap its No. 1 source of athletic funding:

Its students.

The university has proposed a 45% increase to the mandatory Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) fee, from $580 to $840 per year. The IRA fee primarily flows to the athletic department and represents the highest such student fees in the Mountain West Conference by a wide margin.

According to the most recent information on the university’s website, a proposed athletic budget for the 2024-25 academic year projected student fees to account for $16.3 million of annual revenue, more than any other line item. The university’s general fund contribution, which typically comes from state tax dollars, is listed as $16 million; donations are at $15.9 million.

The proposed increase to the IRA fee – 95%, or $9.7 million, of which would go to athletics – would grow the student contribution to $26 million annually on a total budget around $90 million. Based on 2024 statistics available in the College Athletics Database, which compiles federally mandated financial disclosures, that would put SDSU in the top 10 for student contributions among the hundreds of public schools playing NCAA sports.

So can SDSU students vote it down?

Actually, no.

The only student vote at SDSU over mandatory athletic fees came in 2004, when then-president Stephen Weber requested an increase from $30 to $190 per year. The student referendum lost, but Weber unilaterally imposed the fee hike anyway, claiming the university needed to fund two additional women’s sports to maintain Title IX compliance.

In the two IRA increases since, one of which did not involve additional money for athletics, the university used what it calls an “alternative consultation” — a series of campus forums to present arguments in favor of the proposal and solicit student feedback. Then a committee makes a recommendation to the president, who issues a binding decision.

The university has opted for alternative consultation again, saying in proposal documents that it “is used for complex issues that benefit from a presentation outlining the breadth of services provided and the impact on students.” It also allows the university to adjust the proposal based on feedback forms.

Information sessions for the new fee hike began Oct. 28 and ended Tuesday. The Campus Fee Advisory Committee meets Dec. 5 to confer on a recommendation to current president Adela de la Torre.

“If the fee does not pass,” a FAQ section accompanying the proposal says, “the university will face significant challenges in sustaining and enhancing the athletics experience for students and student-athletes. Without a stable funding source, programs will continue to rely heavily on limited and unpredictable state allocations, which have not kept pace with rising costs.

“Competitiveness of SDSU’s athletics programs could decline, putting the university at a disadvantage compared to schools that have already invested through student fees.”

Budget concerns

The increased fees, the university says, will not go toward Snapdragon Stadium debt, revenue sharing for athletes or Mountain West exit fees to join a reformed Pac-12 next year.

The counterargument, of course, is that a $9.7 million annual infusion frees up other funding to cover those expenses, which have increasingly stressed the athletic department’s budget.

The 2024-25 proposed athletics budget on the university website shows a $5.3 million loss. That budget, though, projects $6.1 million in Mountain West distributions, which were withheld by the conference last July to defray the $18 million exit fee owed by SDSU.

That theoretically pushes the projected deficit to $11.4 million, not accounting for declining football ticket sales from a 3-9 season in 2024. There’s also an additional $25.4 million shortfall forecast in a separate section called the “Snapdragon Stadium Project.”

The College Athletics Database paints a similar picture, with a $29.1 million total deficit in 2024, the latest year available. (The Union-Tribune submitted a public records request with SDSU for more recent athletic department budgets that it has yet to receive.)

Another of the FAQs addresses students who don’t watch or play sports, and why they should be obligated to pay the IRA fee to support them.

“A Division I Athletic program adds to the national stature and reputation of a university,” the answer says. “The recognition the university receives from its sports programs translates directly into alumni and donor support for the university. It boosts student spirit and engenders a greater sense of community on campus. It could be argued that (the) extensive local and national exposure enhances the value of each graduate’s degree.”

Where SDSU ranks

Annual tuition at SDSU for a full-time undergrad is $6,450 plus $2,730 in mandatory campus fees. The $290-per-semester IRA fee is next highest behind the $488-per-semester Student Body Center fee.

The new IRA fee would rise to $420 per semester or $840 per year, of which just under $700 would go to athletics and the rest to other campus organizations. In exchange, students receive free general admission entrance to all Aztecs sporting events, although the available tickets for men’s basketball games at Viejas Arena are capped at 2,500 and often oversubscribed. (Buying a season ticket to the six sports that charge for entrance would cost $826 out of pocket.)

The alternative consultation presentation is largely one-sided, with videos and slides outlining the case for a fee that primarily benefits the approximately 450 athletes comprising roughly 1% of SDSU’s record 41,184 enrollment. The current IRA fee allocates 76% to intercollegiate athletics, compared to 95% for the proposed $130-per-semester bump, although the university says some of that is for upgrades to facilities that all students use, like turfed fields and Peterson Gym.

One of the slides is a bar graph comparing SDSU’s current and proposed fees per student with those from 21 other schools. It depicts SDSU’s current fees as being in the middle of the pack, even though its total student contribution to the athletic department ranks in the top 10% nationally.

At the far right side is UC San Diego, where student athletic fees are $1,063 per year and account for 80% of the department’s income. Those fees, however, required a student referendum (that failed twice previously) to elevate from Division II to Division I given the university’s reluctance to increase its relatively modest financial support of athletics.

The graph also neglects to reflect the nearly 50 public schools in Division I that charge no student fees to support athletics.

Many belong to power conferences that distribute upwards of $70 million per school per year from media rights and football bowl revenue, compared to $6 million in the Mountain West. That forces schools like SDSU to find alternative sources of revenue to keep pace, which typically means higher student fees and taxpayer dollars via a university’s general fund.

SDSU projected $32.3 million in student fees and institutional support in its 2024-25 budget. Kansas State’s athletic department, by contrast, is among those that are self-sufficient, receiving no subsidies from the university or students.

Nationally, student fees account for 2% of athletic budgets in power conferences and 18% among the “Group of 5” conferences that don’t have access to their TV riches.

The next highest student contribution in the Mountain West for 2024, according to the College Athletics Database, was San Jose State at $9.4 million. But conference members outside the California State University system receive higher general fund contributions from their universities, allowing lower student fees to balance the athletics budget.

That doesn’t appear likely to change anytime soon, with the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office reporting this week that California is facing an $18 billion shortfall in 2026-27, the fourth straight year with a state budget deficit. The following year is projected to be as high as $35 billion.

‘We’ve had to go out and find new revenue’

Needing to mop up the red ink, SDSU essentially faced three choices: make deep cuts to athletics, significantly increase its institutional support at a time when academic departments are being slashed across the CSU system, or find other sources of income.

It chose tapping students, reasoning that the last IRA fee increase benefiting athletics came in 2008-09.

“We were told very specifically: No fee for the stadium, that’s totally on you,” SDSU athletic director John David Wicker said of the $310 million Mission Valley project that opened in 2022. “As we’ve seen our expenses go up, we’ve had to go out and find new revenue. We raised more money. We generate more money. But it’s got to the point where student fees had been (a larger part) of our budget. This gets it back up to where it was.”

According to the College Athletics Database, 52% of SDSU’s athletic income in 2010 came from student fees and institutional support. In 2024, that was down to 31% but the overall budget had tripled.

The only opposing viewpoint in the alternative consultation documents is at the bottom of a five-page information pamphlet. Written by an unidentified sophomore from the class of 2028, it argues the higher IRA fee “would place an added financial burden on all SDSU students, many of whom are already struggling with tuition, housing, and the high cost of living in San Diego.”

It adds: “Athletics already benefits from substantial external revenue streams such as ticket sales, sponsorships, donations, and stadium rentals, while academic and cultural programs do not enjoy the same resources. Requiring all students to subsidize a program that directly benefits a small portion of the student body is not financially responsible, and alternative funding sources should be pursued before shifting more costs onto students.”

Given the opportunity, several student bodies have voted down athletic fees in recent years. In 2022, 70% of students at the University of New Orleans rejected a referendum to raise fees by $300 to establish a football program. A fee hike failed by a similar margin at Texas-San Antonio in 2023, and students at Sam Houston State have twice rejected athletic fee referendums since 2021.

UC Davis has some of the nation’s highest, parts of two different mandatory campus fees that, like SDSU, don’t directly reference intercollegiate athletics in their names. In 2022, a student launched a ballot campaign that would eliminate the athletics portion of both fees and potentially wipe out more than half of the department’s revenue overnight.

Students overwhelmingly voted to abolish the two athletics fees totaling $571 per year. The voter turnout was 12% of the student body, five times higher than typical referendums.

UC Davis regulations, though, require a minimum 20% turnout to revoke a fee. The vote was not certified, and the mandatory student athletic fees remain.