Students paying students: How the U is trying to stay competitive in athletics

University of Minnesota students will pay a new $200 athletics fee this year even if they never don a Gophers football helmet or attend a single game.

The Twin Cities campus for the first time has added a $100-per-semester fee to offset the substantial price tag for paying student athletes to play on Gophers teams. Even so, the athletics budget is $8.75 million short, though U officials said they’re hopeful they can close the gap.

The new fees are drawing ire from student government leaders and come at the same time as a significant tuition increase of 6.5% for in-state undergraduates and 7.5% increase for out-of-state undergraduates there this fall.

Riley Hetland and Ethan Fiegel, the president and vice president of the U’s Undergraduate Student Government, said in a statement that “while we acknowledge that student-athletes deserve fair compensation for the amazing work they do, Gopher Athletics already generates revenue from students through voluntary contributions in the form of tickets and merchandise sales.”

“Students should not be forced to pay an additional fee on top of this,” they said.

Mark Coyle, the U’s athletic director, said in an interview this week that the fee is not uncommon among other institutions and helps maintain athletic facilities used by the student body.

Paying student athletes the full $20.5 million will make up 12% of the U’s $174.2 million athletic budget for 2026, more than the cost of scholarships, maintaining facilities or paying down debt. The nearly $9 million shortfall is after the new student fees are accounted for; they are expected to bring in $7 million, U officials said.

Coyle said 300 student employees have jobs with the U’s athletic programs, getting firsthand work experience, and 125,000 U students attended athletic games last year.

“If you kind of take a step back and think about it, almost every student that touches this campus from walk-on week to graduation, they go through athletic facilities,” he added.

The U isn’t the only school charging athletic fees. Six other Big Ten institutions — the University of Illinois, the University of Iowa, the University of Maryland, Northwestern University, Rutgers and UCLA — do the same, a U spokesperson said.

South Carolina and Louisville have recently added student athletic fees, possibly hoping to put a dent in the $20.5 million maximum schools can pay student athletes since the $2.8 billion House vs. NCAA settlement resolved three federal antitrust lawsuits.

U officials have said they will give out the full $20.5 million; virtually every other Power 4 conference athletic program in the U.S. has said they will, too. The U has yet to disclose how much each individual student athlete will be paid.

The Crookston, Morris and Duluth campuses’ athletics fees range from $69 to $111 per semester.

Coyle said he didn’t consult student government or other student groups about adding the fee: “This was just a conversation that we had with campus and ourselves,” he said.

The new fees will be charged to all degree-seeking Twin Cities students taking six or more credits.

Jacob Richter, who was a student senator with the Undergraduate Student Government for three years before graduating this spring, said students already pay a hefty activities fee, and tuition is going up significantly. He said he understands that athletics are “core to our culture” at Midwestern universities like the U, but the fees place an added burden on students, who may already be struggling to pay for school.

“I don’t think we should be subsidizing athletics that already charge so much money for concessions and often charge [for] admission tickets to patrons of the events,” he said.

In Dinkytown this week, students had mixed feelings.

“I think it’s stupid,” said Evan Nelson, a 2025 graduate. “I don’t think we, as students, should be paying for athletes. That’s not our job.”

Isaac Asuma, an incoming sophomore who plays Gophers basketball, said he was happy athletes are getting paid.

“I think it’s good since the athletes are the ones everyone’s coming to watch,” he said.

As she finished making a drink at Starbucks, Mary Krause said for STEM students like her, course loads can be too heavy to find time to attend athletic games.

“I don’t really think you should have to pay that $100 unless you’re participating,” she said.

Across the country, some colleges and universities are adding fees to sports tickets or charging more at concession stands to fund the payout, instead of raising student fees.

A bill to regulate college sports introduced in the U.S. House last week would, among other things, bar schools from using student fees to pay for college athletic programs.

Luis Hernandez, strategic communications director and associate athletic director for the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said the school has come up with other ways to fund its $198.9 million athletics budget, including new corporate sponsorships, such as adding the Culver’s logo to the Kohl’s Center basketball court.

They’ve also scheduled events like concerts and the chance to play indoor golf at Camp Randall Stadium. The upcoming Morgan Wallen and Coldplay concerts at the stadium are the first to be held there in nearly 28 years, Hernandez said.

Students don’t pay any athletic fees there, and the university plans on spending the full $20.5 million on athletes that is allowed, he said.

In Minnesota, according to the July Board of Regents docket, the new student fee was “one component of a larger, multi-year plan to … support all current sports programs” at a time when the financial model for Division 1 sports is changing. All student fees are approved by the board as part of the annual operating budget, a U spokesperson said.

Coyle said the athletics department has five major ways to generate revenue: contracts for distributing games on TV, ticket sales, fundraising, sponsorships and another category that includes licensing, concessions and renting out facilities for events.

New events will bring in money, like Farm Aid at Huntington Bank Stadium and the World Junior Championship, a hockey tournament held at 3M Arena at Mariucci this winter.

“We’ve tried to be very creative in trying to create new revenue streams for our programs,” Coyle said.

The U is looking for a naming partner for Williams Arena, which will bring in new revenue, he said. And the athletic department has trimmed the budget by leaving many positions unfilled or filled with less than a full-time replacement since the pandemic, he said.

Coyle, who is in his 10th year as athletic director, added that he was able to make up a $3.5 million deficit in the 2025 budget.

Tim McCleary, the U’s deputy athletics director, told the Board of Regents this month that Coyle has balanced the budget every year but 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic. Operating budgets now are smaller than they were before COVID-19 when inflation-adjusted.

Out of 18 Big Ten institutions, the U ranks 14th or 15th in terms of total expenses this year, U officials said.

“We’ve been called by national media the most resourceful athletic program in the country,” Coyle said, “meaning we squeeze our budget in terms of maximizing the dollars we have to have success academically and athletically.”