Participation Fees -- Attempts to Keep Athletic Programs Afloat

By Emily Cerling and Bob Herman

Among the primary original functions of America's public schools were to provide education and activities for youth. However, as financial situations have changed since the 1970s, many public schools have faced the quandary of either charging students for athletics or cutting the entire program.
Consequently, participation fees (also known as "pay-to-play") have become an issue for many high schools across the nation.

Dr. Scott Smith, an assistant professor at Central Michigan University and former district athletic director of Wichita (Kansas) Public Schools, said pay-to-play first appeared in the early 1980s on the East and West Coasts -- most notably Massachusetts and California. When state property taxes get axed, everything is affected. The school budgets get tightened, and the athletic budgets are directly impacted.

"When the school budget has a problem, the athletic budget has a problem," Smith said. "In most districts and in most states, it's impossible to break even and pay off all their bills. Across the country, most athletic budgets are one to three percent of the school district budget. When cuts need to be made, they're going to be in areas that don't affect and are far away from the core classrooms."
While these programs are important to the students' educational growth, the bills inevitably add up. Paying for equipment, facilities, uniforms, transportation and coaches' salaries results in a cumbersome financial burden.

Of course, there are alternatives to pay-to-play, such as booster clubs, corporate sponsorships and fund-raisers, but those are dependent upon the willingness and ability of parents, students and the community to help out.

Booster clubs, which generally do not get involved with participation fees, can help offset some costs. Peter Oppeneer, president of the Madison (Wisconsin) East High School Booster Club, says the main responsibility of the booster club is to purchase uniforms and equipment.

"The Purgolder Booster Club does not offer funding to individual athletes, including participation fees," Oppeneer said. "It also does not pay coaches' salaries or facility rentals. Rather, its primary function is to fund uniforms and equipment."

Some states, notably New York, South Dakota and Virginia, are strongly against implementing pay-to-play programs.

"In 1995, the Commissioner of Education found it to be ‘improper for a school district to charge fees to participants as a method of funding interscholastic sports programs,'" said Nina Van Erk, executive director of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA). "He also ‘cautioned school districts not to engage in activities which create the impression that it is requiring payment of fees for student participation in sport activities.'"

In an effort to offset budget cuts, Haverhill (Massachusetts) High School implemented participation fees.

Athletic Director Peter Shanahan said that pay-to-play was applied in 2003 by the school committee after the athletic budget was cut by a couple hundred thousand dollars due to a loss in state revenue. The participation fee is $300 for the first sport, $100 for the second and $50 for the third, and there is also an opportunity for a waiver.

"We started with one fee for the year, like an activity fee, but the school wanted to go to some kind of graduated scale," Shanahan said.

He also said that the athletic budget in 2000 was about $550,000, and now it is approximately $300,000. Commensurately, Haverhill had 900 student-athletes in 2000, and has 600 at this time.
One of the many headaches the participation fees have caused for Shanahan is the fact that collecting the fees – which he said is about 50 percent of his job now -- is taking away from the educational aspect of what his job is supposed to include.

In the long run, Shanahan thinks participation fees help the athletic budget, but it seems as though they are only taxing a certain group.

"We're kind of an inner-city school," he said. "We're segregating a certain part of a population even though we offer waivers."

Strongsville (Ohio) High School has experienced financial difficulty this year, and athletics and activities programs felt the brunt of it. As a result, it now charges fees for students to participate in athletic and fine arts programs, as well as for membership in school clubs.

Participating students now are required to pay $270 for each sport. An activity fee was instituted as well, which requires a student to pay $40 for each club or other activity in which he or she participates.
While some sports are more costly to administer than others, Strongsville High School does not differentiate in the price of the fees.

"There is a set fee for athletics," Strongsville Principal Karen Hollo said. "It doesn't matter if you're on the golf team or the football team -- you still have to pay it."

While parents are begrudgingly paying the fee, Strongsville's athletic director does not see much of the revenue.

"We had to basically balance the budget," Athletic Director Joe Lynch said. "We're not getting that money -- the school district is."

While some high schools are experiencing the rising costs of athletics, some schools are suffering from the number of people who are unable to pay. Bill Faflick, athletic director of Wichita (Kansas) Public Schools, understands this dilemma.

Participation among high schools in Wichita has risen to its all-time highest level. However, the athletic budget has suffered. Since 1991, schools in the district have used a pay-to-play program with a sliding scale, which means any student eligible to receive financial aid is also eligible to have the $20 participation fee waived. Due to low per-capita income, more and more Wichita students do not have to pay the fee, making a direct impact on the athletic budget. Since 2000, the school system has seen an estimated 25-percent decrease in the revenue from such fees.

"We're attempting to remove the obstacle, but it is one more thing to do to prevent kids from playing," Faflick said.

There are two sides to every coin, though. Some schools have implemented participation fees and have not seen any significant drops in participation rates or any general problems.

Seattle (Washington) Roosevelt High School charges student-athletes $50 for one sport, $25 for a second and the third one costs nothing. And in many instances at Roosevelt, participation is emphasized much more than the fees, as waivers are also offered.

"By virtue of us going out and explaining to parents the situation, a lot more people are willing to do it," Roosevelt Athletic Director Michael Scott said. "It's the frivolous expense versus the meat-and-potatoes expense."

Participation fees also seem reasonable for certain areas because some parents are already used to club sport fees, while other communities -- some that are more affluent than others -- simply do not want to see programs get cut.

Prescott (Arizona) High School is one of those places.

"We have lived with the fees for so long that no one seems to mind any more," Prescott Athletic Director Bill White said. "With club fees being so high, many people feel the cost is low in comparison. Philosophically, I do not like the idea of participation fees. However, in our situation, it has worked. This is due mainly to the importance the community of Prescott puts on these activities."

For the high schools that do have a participation fee implemented, another issue arises -- should the consequential fee result in more playing time for a parent's child?

This creates a particularly tough situation for sports such as football and basketball where participants' playing time is limited at any given time.

"Participation fees further perpetuate the pervasive sense of ‘entitlement' in our interscholastic athletic programs," Van Erk said. "When families pay the same amount of money for their child to participate, there is an expectation of equal playing opportunity. This perception occurs with no regard to the child's effort or skill."

Many schools, like Haverhill, try to suppress any potential parental disagreement before it even starts.
"On our admissions slip, we note that playing time is guaranteed for junior varsity and freshman teams," Shanahan said. "But for varsity teams, playing time is solely up to the coach. We make sure parents sign that piece -- it saves a lot of headaches."

Carmen Kennedy, the athletic director at Grosse Pointe (Michigan) North High School, has not thus far dealt with any parent complaints about participation. Nonetheless, Kennedy explains the purpose of the fee to prospective parents who would want more playing opportunities for their children.
"I am proactive on this issue," Kennedy said. "I make a statement in the parent meetings -- ‘Play to participate -- not to play.' Regardless of playing time, we still have to transport and dress a student-athlete."

Gary Bennett, the head coach of Grosse Pointe North's girls basketball team, is able to see both sides of the story. As the head coach and a parent of former student-athletes at Grosse Pointe North, he said he always feels pressure to play kids, but the fee doesn't make an impact on playing time.

"We talk about filling roles on the team," Bennett said. "All roles are important, but not all roles are the same, and kids will not all have the same playing time. The fee should have nothing to do with playing time.

"As a parent, I never once thought about my kids playing simply because I paid a participation fee. They are not paying to play in games; they are paying to participate as a member of the team. Not everyone is equally talented, and not everyone will play the same amount."

Even Smith, who concentrated on the study of participation fees in his doctoral dissertation, believes there cannot be a direct correlation between the fee and playing time.

"You have to make sure the parents understand that it involves participating and being a part of the program, but that it does not include playing time," Smith said. "We don't have those rules in high school sports, especially at the varsity level."

According to Smith's research, participation fees are most prevalent in suburbs in the northeast, across the northern part of the country and along the West Coast. He also said numerous things need to be taken into consideration to determine if a fee will work or not.

"There are so many factors – the amount of the fee, the demographics of students and parents, the way you implement the fee (waiver, sliding scale, caps), the culture of high school sport in your district," Smith said. "There is no real way to predict what a fee will do to a participation rate in a district."

The 2006-07 High School Athletics Participation Survey conducted by the National Federation of State High School Associations indicated that participation rates have reached an all-time high with more girls and boys than ever participating in high school sports. This research shows that 7,342,910 students participated in sports and activities last year.

That might suggest that the increased implementation of participation fees has not had an effect on participation numbers overall. However, school budgets continue to get tighter, ensuring that participation fees will be part of the high school sports landscape for at least the immediately foreseeable future.


Emily Cerling is a fall semester intern in the NFHS Publications/Communications Department. She is a senior at Butler (Indiana) University, majoring in integrated communications.

Bob Herman is a fall semester intern in the NFHS Publications/Communications Department. He is a junior at Butler (Indiana) University, majoring in journalism (news editorial) and minoring in Spanish.