UTC students forced to pay fee to support athletics

But records show a large portion of student fees were already shifted to athletics, despite an overwhelming student vote two years ago against raising fees to boost university sports.

Starting in the 2002-03 school year, administrators increased the share of student fees going to university sports from $648,000 to $1.4 million.

Richard Brown, UTC vice chancellor for finance and operations, said the change met a mandate from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission to stop using money from the state to support athletics.

“We took student fees and put those dollars into athletics and removed the state support,” he said.

With the new athletic fee imposed this fall, student fees will inject $2.2 million into the university’s athletics budget, about 32 percent of the total sports budget. Before the 2002 shift, just 12 percent of the athletic department budget was made up of student fees.

Administrators said the new athletics fee was needed to address gender equity issues.