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Students were charged more than $795 million to support athletics programs at 222 public universities that play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I in 2008-9, up an inflation-adjusted 18 percent since 2005, an analysis by USA Today finds. The newspaper's review, part of a continuing series of reports on college sports finances, also reveals that some institutions do not disclose their per-student athletics fee charges -- which are increasingly subsidizing money-losing athletics programs -- on their billing statements, websites or in other official school publications. Student athletics fees are typically charged to offset the costs of subsidized or free tickets to events for students, but students (or their parents) pay them even if the students don't (or can't) go to the games.
