If you are enrolled as a full-time undergraduate student at Ohio University, you are guaranteed “free” admission to all Ohio University Division I intercollegiate events. The catch? Regardless of how many games a student attends, he or she will have to fork over roughly $429.72 a year.
Like most universities, OU’s athletics department is not predominantly funded by ticket sales, but through a mandatory General Fee. This money is vital in providing many non-academic university experiences including athletics, but also Ping, student programming, Counseling and Psychological Services, the new multipurpose center and Baker University Center.
All of these auxiliaries — athletics included — are of great benefit to the student experience, though athletics receives about 34 percent of that money, the largest share of any department.
Athletics argues having a strong program adds value to every student’s degree and builds school pride, though I am unconvinced most students would value that experience near $1,700 over the course of four years.
For many students (myself included), it’s once in a blue moon we make it out to a football game or volleyball game, so it is unclear to me why we should be paying to subsidize tickets we rarely use. If OU is so confident we have a top quality athletics program, there really shouldn’t be any need to charge students for tickets via the General Fee.
To be clear I am not suggesting that we completely defund athletics, which would be ludicrous. I have great respect for the student-athletes at OU, and I do enjoy the games when I make it out to one. Scholarships for student-athletes (though not actually funded through the General Fee) should continue. It is reasonable to expect some amount of operational funding to come from the student fees but the current proportion seems excessive.
A General Fee committee that decides how student funds should be spent does exist, but its effectiveness is questionable. I sat on the General Fee committee last year, and sitting is about the extent of everything we did. Much like all student government at OU, the General Fee committee is purely a suggestion box for how student money should be spent. The administration did take our input on new funding ventures, but any fundamental restructuring of the General Fee was never up for debate.
What we need is for students, faculty and administration to come together and fully reevaluate the General Fee. It may be infeasible to radically restructure the General Fee every year because of individual department budgets, but it is not unreasonable to ask students once every several years if they still like how their student funds are being used.
Showing your Bobcat pride does mean showing up to games and cheering your fellow students on, but it also means asking the tough questions about how you want your money to be spent.
Matt Farmer is a senior studying education and political science. Are you happy with how the General Fee is spent? Email him at mf291209@ohiou.edu
