The mandatory student athletic fee at the University of Hawaii will likely remain unchanged until at least fall 2020, officials acknowledged after a Thursday Board of Regents committee meeting.
The $50-per-semester fee was implemented in 2011 and a controversial April survey on student attitudes about a possible adjustment was a major item of discussion by the Committee on Intercollegiate Athletics.
Athletic director David Matlin did not have a proposal pending for changing the fee and did not offer one at the meeting but said one could be presented in the fall after further study.
Daniel Flores, president of the Graduate Student Organization, told regents, “The writers of all the questions seemed to make a small attempt — only a small attempt — to hide their biases (in framing the questions).”
Flores said the survey, which was administered by the Manoa Institutional Research Office, lacked some data useful for student responses. He also suggested that students be given an option to opt out of a student fee.
Additional testimony claimed that references to “gym” in the survey caused some students to think the student fee covered use of the Warrior Recreation Center, which is not part of the package.
The athletic fee, which provides approximately $1.5 million a year to the athletic department, includes admission to ticketed UH athletic events, football tailgates, giveaways and other experience enhancements.
Committee chairman Jeff Portnoy said student responses to the survey, which MIRO measured at 65% opposed to a fee adjustment and 35% in favor, “were not a surprise. If I had a survey asking if I’d pay more taxes for rail, I’d probably say ‘no.’ ”
Portnoy said, “I think the student fee is absurdly out of whack with practically every institution (in major college athletics) and definitely out of whack in the two conferences we are (competing) in by significant numbers.”
UH athletics receives less than any of the schools it competes against in the Mountain West, which has 11 full members, or the nine-member Big West.
Portnoy said, “On the other hand, I can understand student concerns about a lack of understanding exactly what they’d be getting.”
In 2015 Matlin listed raising student fees as one of four pillars toward achieving a balanced budget by 2020.
Any suggestion for altering the fee would have to go before the Manoa Fee Committee composed of students, faculty and administration, though the group’s recommendation is not binding and the regents would have the ultimate say.
