Most UC Davis students don’t play sports or attend games. Why should they pay athletic fees?
During my four years at UC Davis, I didn’t attend a single sporting event, yet I personally paid over $2,000 to the university’s athletics program.
How is that fair?
That’s the question a group of fed-up UC Davis students are now asking. And, later this year, students could have the opportunity to do something about it: By voting on a sports-fee referendum.
Fourth-year student Calvin Wong, who’s spearheading the effort, articulated the stakes perfectly in a recent California Aggie op-ed.
“This pattern of unequal exchange underpins the notion that the university sees us as nothing more than sheep with coats of money to fleece,” Wong wrote.
UC Davis students — the vast majority of whom do not play or attend the sports they’re bankrolling — are understandably frustrated that they’re stuck in a one-sided deal they never bargained for. UC Davis undergraduates pay $570 in annual fees that help fund the school’s NCAA athletics program. Student fees account for $19 million, or nearly half of the university’s sports budget.
For comparison, Sacramento State students pay $308 each year for an “Intercollegiate Athletics/Spirit Leaders Fee,” generating $9.4 million, or 38% of the school’s athletics budget.
The current effort to revisit athletics fees is not the first time UC Davis students have raised concerns over unfair athletics fees — but it may be the most significant. And while larger frustrations over student fee breakdowns and costs aren’t new, neither is the pattern of UC administrators disregarding student protests over the financial burden of excessive student fees.
In 2017, UC Davis’ then-Interim Chancellor Ralph Hexter overruled a ‘no’ vote by the Council on Student Affairs and Fees (COSAF) on a proposed increase in student fees to support intercollegiate athletics. COSAF, which is composed of students and staff members, provides a critical voice in the oversight and allocation of student fees. By overruling a COSAF vote and ignoring the wishes of the student body, the administration sent a disturbing message that fees are more important than the interests of students.
As a student reporter at UC Davis, I saw administrators misuse student fees, hide money in presidential reserves and propose tuition increases despite student protest. UC Davis has too much at stake in its athletics program to let a potential sports-fee referendum occur without a fight.
If a referendum does qualify, at least 20% of the student body must participate in the vote and, of that, at least 60% of those votes must be in favor of rescinding the athletics fee for the proposal to pass. Even then, the University of California’s president could override the vote.
As daunting and convoluted as the process is, there’s still a chance that student voices will prevail. In February 2020, UC Davis students turned out in record numbers to pass the Basic Needs and Services Referendum, approving an additional $34-per-quarter fee that ensured the survival of student-run services and programs such as the bus service and the bike barn, the student newspaper, mental health services, events like Picnic Day and many other critical on-campus programs.
That vote proved that students have the power to control what their student fees look like. With strong turnout, students can send a message that they are more than a payday.
This story was originally published January 19, 2022 at 5:00 AM.