Linda Randall says her daughter, Randi-Lyn, a student at Radford University in southwestern Virginia, is not a “die-hard” follower of the Highlanders sports teams. Even so, by the time Randi-Lyn graduates in 2012, her parents probably will have paid an average of nearly $1,000 a year in fees to the school’s athletics department. They just didn’t know it from the school’s billing statements or website. “We’re looking at five years because she changed majors. That’s $5,000,” Randall says. “That’s one of her loans. That would have paid rent off-campus for a year. It’s kind of disheartening. I don’t think I’d have as much of a problem with it if I knew I was paying it. With what we’re paying, it doesn’t seem right.” Like most other schools in NCAA Division I, Radford relies on student fees to help support ever-expanding athletics budgets. Many schools, including Radford, do not itemize where those fees go for those who pay the tuition bills, USA TODAY found in an ongoing examination of college athletics finances. The amounts going to athletics are soaring, and account for as much as 23% of the required annual bill for in-state students. Students were charged more than $795 million to support sports programs at 222 Division I public schools during the 2008-09 school year, according to an analysis of thousands of pages of financial documents. Adjusting for inflation, that’s an 18% jump since 2005, making athletics funding at public schools a key force in the rapidly escalating cost of higher education. CHAT TRANSCRIPT: Discussion of college athletics and student fees STUDENTS: Unaware of usage of fees and less interested in athletics DISCLOSURE: Laws in place in Virginia and Tennessee ANALYSIS: percentage of tuition that goes to athletics DATABASE: What NCAA schools spend on athletics At nearly all schools, various mandatory fees are tacked on to tuition, and can cover everything from student health care to computers. But the largest portion often goes toward running the school’s athletics department. In exchange, students typically get free or reduced admission to sporting events. But when demand exceeds available student seating, some students can get shut out. Many aren’t interested in the games anyway. “She does go to some of the games,” Linda Randall says of her daughter, “and it’s nice that they let them in free. … But she’s going there for the (academics); she’s not going to fund athletics.” There were 42 Division I athletics departments that reported receiving no student-fee money in 2009, but some of those schools say student-fee money is included in institutional funding provided to athletics programs. Many schools help cover the gap between their athletics departments’ expenses and revenue because they regard sports teams — especially football and men’s basketball teams — as important parts of campus life and excellent vehicles for generating publicity and alumni support. A University of California-Berkeley faculty group seeking ways to reduce the campus’ financial support of athletics acknowledged in a recent report that besides having a “significant” impact on the school’s $250 million in annual academic fundraising, Cal’s wide-ranging and successful sports program “adds to campus spirit and unity, provides free advertising for the campus, helps in branding, and provides a link and outreach to alumni.” But at NCAA Division I schools, athletics spending has been rising at a faster rate than increases in academic spending, prompting various higher-education groups to call for a change in priorities. At least six schools — all in Virginia — charged each of their students more than $1,000 as an athletics fee for the 2008-09 school year. That ranged from 10% to more than 23% of the total tuition and mandatory-fee charges for in-state students, the primary customers at most public universities. Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board and co-author of the organization’s annual Trends in College Pricing report, asks: Is athletics “10% of what you’re getting out of college?” At least five states, including Virginia, ban or limit the use of public and/or tuition money for athletics. For some schools in those states, relatively large fee charges become an alternative. In other states, on top of dedicated fees that might or might not have been approved by students, athletics departments often get other financial support from their schools. The Randalls are not the only parents who were unaware of the scope of the athletics fees. Among the 20 schools nationally that had the highest estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009, based on a USA TODAY analysis, 15 schools confirmed that they do not disclose their per-student athletics fee charges on their billing statements, websites or in other official school publications. Officials at four of those 15 schools — Radford, James Madison , Longwood and Norfolk State, all of which are in Virginia — said the information could be found in an appendix of a state report. At Virginia Military Institute, the athletics fee figure is “buried in our budget,” says Col. Stewart MacInnis, a spokesman. “I had to go dig it out myself. It’s not where anybody would go look for it. You’ve identified a weak spot.” Some schools don’t reveal how much students pay toward athletics, to try to avoid controversy. “Why would you?” asks Jack Boyle, vice president for business affairs and finance at Cleveland State, which was just outside the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics-fee charges. ” …Whenever we spell something out, somebody decides they don’t want that service. We don’t spell out in tuition that 1.8% of it goes to run the religion department. ‘I’m an atheist. Why should I pay for them? I’d never go to any of their courses.’ ” ‘A matter of transparency’ Schools’ reluctance to make public how much athletics departments get from student fees runs counter to federal, and some state-level, efforts to require greater transparency of college costs. The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 this year began requiring schools to annually report to the Education Department separate figures for tuition and required fees. (They had been allowed to report a combined figure.) Starting in July 2011, schools with the largest percentage increases in price over the previous three years will be listed by the department and required to report the reasons for the increases and what will be done to cut costs. In May, the University of California system voted to force greater disclosure of how its schools use money from a fee that can fund certain programs, including athletics. Each campus will have to maintain a website that says how the spending of that money compares with the spending recommended by the campus’ student-fee advisory committee. In June, the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics advocated making student fees apparent as a means to reform athletics spending. “At a time when the cost of attendance at college is going up at a very high rate, it’s a matter of transparency and fairness and equity that people ought to know what they’re spending their money on,” commission co-chairman William E. Kirwan , chancellor of the University System of Maryland, said at that time. “I think that is a way of bringing pressure to bear — this transparency and this exposure of revenues and expenditures — and beginning to put a hold on, to tamp down, the rate of increase (of spending) in intercollegiate athletics.” After Kirwan’s comments, USA TODAY found that two schools in the Maryland system were among the top 20 in estimated per-student athletics fee charges in 2009. Maryland-Baltimore County specifically disclosed its athletics fees on its website and the university system’s; Towson provided only the amount of what the bursar’s office’s website called a “University Fee.” “We do not itemize each cost or fee,” bursar Thomas Ruby says. “We do not get into that detail. That’s how this university operates.” Kirwan said in early August that Towson’s athletics fee is “in the public domain” because it was discussed at a system board of regents public meeting, but “it isn’t as transparent as I think it should be. It ought to be more transparent on the website, and it will be addressed.” Within two days, Towson’s athletics fee — $767 per student for the 2010-11 school year — had been posted on the university system’s site; it remains unspecified on Towson’s site. (Following this story’s original publication on Sept. 22, Towson began showing its specific athletics fee information on the university’s web site.) The Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington, D.C.-based research group, plans to survey students to see how many are aware of athletics fees. But even the center acknowledges that increasing accountability is tough — mostly because even if students are aware of the fee, they rarely are clear on the true cost, administrative director Matthew Denhart says. Many students pay their college bills with loans, so they don’t think about what the true cost will be. And third-party payers — parents, scholarships, Pell Grants — pass on the cost to someone else. “There’s a lot of, ‘I’m not paying for it anyway, so why fight it?’ ” Denhart says. ‘Absolutely getting nothing’ from fee There are those who are trying to fight athletics fee increases or the fees themselves. Kentucky state Rep. Joni Jenkins filed a bill this year to prohibit public universities from charging commuter students mandatory athletics and meal-plan fees. Her bill was never taken up by a state legislative committee, but she says she plans to refile the bill soon so it will be heard in the next legislative session starting in January. “I represent a middle-class district where parents are struggling and students are struggling,” Jenkins says. “So many of the students from my district are part time because they can’t afford to go full time, and they have to work, and they are absolutely getting nothing out of that athletic fee.” She believes commuter students and others should be able to opt out of paying athletics fees, although she acknowledges that for “some of the smaller schools that don’t have the same revenues, (an athletics fee) does keep their non-revenue sports going.” At Montana, however, the student body rejected a proposed athletics-fee increase, overriding action by elected student leaders. Representatives from the Associated Students of the University of Montana (ASUM) approved a plan to boost the athletics fee to $144 annually from $92, but other students were so outraged that they forced the issue to be put to an all-campus vote in May. The plan was defeated by a 2-to-1 ratio. ASUM President Ashleen Williams, who supported the fee increase, predicts the issue will come up again in the fall. “Sometimes you have to make hard decisions,” she says. Relying heavily on ticket revenue to fund athletics is a “really risky game” because sales — which have been Montana’s largest or second-largest revenue source each of the past five years — can wane if teams don’t win. Hawaii’s athletics department had been trying to rely on the $23 million a year it generated from ticket sales, donations, television and marketing, plus an additional $10 million in direct and indirect support from the university. But by this summer, the department had accumulated about $10 million in debt and was adding to that at a rate of $1.5 million to $2 million a year. Over the objections of undergraduate and graduate student organizations, the state board of regents voted in July to impose an athletics fee for the first time. Beginning in January, students will be charged $50 a semester, an amount that is projected to increase the athletics department’s net revenue by about $1.8 million a year; the fee money will be available for any purpose except staff compensation or benefits. “It showed a pretty messed-up sense of priorities,” says Amy Donahue, chairwoman of the University of Hawaii Graduate Student Organization’s advocacy committee. “If we’re going to pay, it should reflect the priorities of the university and benefit the entire university community.” Associate athletics director Carl Clapp says the department hopes the fee will have such a benefit. Athletics “is by no means the most important part” of the university, Clapp says, but “a strong, successful athletic program is very important to the connection with alumni, donors and leaders in the state, and it magnifies the university not only in Hawaii but beyond the state. That’s the visibility that the athletics program can have.” ‘We don’t ask where it’s going’ At some schools, students have been willing to approve fee increases for a variety of purposes. In March 2009, Bowling Green students voted to approve a $60-per-semester fee to help finance the construction of a new campus arena/convocation center — and the measure carried by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. (The school won’t collect the fee until the arena’s completion, scheduled for 2011.) Also that month, Utah State students voted 53% to 47% to more than double their athletics fee to nearly $120 a semester as part of a funding plan to help the school have a more viable program in the NCAA’s elite-level Football Bowl Subdivision. There are students who say they don’t mind paying sizable athletics fees, regardless of whether the fees are specifically disclosed. James Madison University was another school among the top 20 in estimated per-student fee charges that did not disclose its specific athletics fee ($1,080 in 2008-09, according to the state report the school cited). Student body President Andrew Reese says that “it’s not cause for much concern for (students)” because the school provides free admission to events, puts student sections in prime seating areas, and “athletics is a very big part of the student culture.” Cleveland State junior Andrew Sobczak says, “I personally would like it if I knew what I was paying for — and where the money was going.” But he has no problem with most of his overall fee money going toward intercollegiate athletics: “How much? That can be questionable. But I think it should. If you want to go to school, part of the whole school atmosphere is sports as well.” If students know little or nothing about general fees, Sobczak says, it’s partly their own fault for not being more educated consumers. “We don’t question it, we don’t ask where it’s going, we don’t do any of that. So it’s definitely partly our fault that the system works that way.” Boyle, Cleveland State’s vice president of business affairs and finance, says that if students don’t want their money going toward sports, there are options such as online schools and schools such as the University of Phoenix that do not have sports. At Cleveland State, general fees are considered part of tuition, Boyle says. The money from collected fees generally is sliced up three ways, he says. About 40% goes to paying off debt from new student buildings. About 45% goes to athletics. The rest funds activities such as student government. Linda Randall says being told about Radford’s athletics fee “up front would have been better. We still would have sent her there. She loves it. She’s happy. But it would have been nice to know.”

DETROIT — Many college students are carrying more than a heavy class load this fall. Total student loan debt exceeds total credit card debt in this country, with $850 billion outstanding , according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org and FastWeb.com, websites that provide information about student aid and scholarships. Consumers owe about $828 billion in revolving credit, including credit card debt, according to seasonally adjusted numbers in a report on July credit from the Federal Reserve . DEBT: Credit card use keeps falling amid economic uncertainty YOUR MONEY: Student loan program changes affect rates, repayment Finaid.org says it first happened in June. Oddly, some students don’t even know how much they owe — or to whom. “I’m scared to know,” said Carla George, 20, of Detroit, a junior majoring in biology at Wayne State University . She knows that her mother, at one point borrowed about $10,000 through a federal Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students. The PLUS loan lets parents borrow for costs not covered by a financial aid package. George estimates that she has taken out at least $10,000 in other loans. “I think it’s a whole bunch more,” she said. A college diploma and a good job are supposed to be the payoff for years of hard work in school. But for thousands of today’s students, there’s going to be a payback, too — as those loans come due after graduation. Some college students are failing financially long before they get a diploma — or a grown-up paycheck. “Students are far worse off today with student loan debt,” said Alan Collinge, who runs a website called StudentLoanJustice.org, where students discuss their troubles with college loans. With tuition far outpacing inflation for the past 20 years, student borrowing has continued to grow — a whopping 25% last year. Some students who are borrowing never expected to, but their parents have lost jobs or suffered other financial setbacks in the recession. Dramatic drops in home values also have made it far tougher for some parents to cover college costs by simply taking out a home equity loan. For many college grads, that monthly student loan payment is turning into quite a scary number. Kate Baker, 30, pays $600 a month — and has watched less-encumbered friends her age buy houses, travel and generally enjoy more disposable income. Baker doesn’t regret borrowing huge sums to major in government and urban studies at Smith College , a private liberal arts school for women in New England. She’s convinced that her Smith degree has given her an edge and could be the main reason she has been employed for the past 10 years — even if, she jokes, she’s also going to be in poverty until she’s 50. “As you look longer term, it’s scary that my retirement account is basically non-existent,” said Baker, who makes about $50,000 a year as a development director for Wayne State University Press, and another $5,000 as mayor pro tem for Ferndale, Mich. What can you do to hold down your debt so you’re not digging out of it for years after graduation? Get a handle now on “the number” — what you will need each month for loan payments. If, for example, you have $30,000 in student loans, your could be paying about $350 a month for 10 years — if they’re Stafford Loans at a current unsubsidized rate of 6.8% and have 1% in fees. Including interest, you’d be paying off nearly $42,000. To swing this without hitting the lottery, you’re going to need a job that pays far more than the minimum wage. One estimate, according to a calculator at www.Finaid.org, is an annual salary of $42,000, assuming you use 10% of your monthly gross for loan payments. If you start out making $25,000 a year or less, get ready to move back into Mom and Dad’s basement to make those loan payments. Candy Wright, group manager credit counseling for GreenPath in Farmington Hills, Mich., said many young grads are having a hard time lately finding a job that can pay enough to cover their loans. She warns them to be realistic about borrowing. A visit to your college career office can provide a look at estimated salaries in your chosen field and region of the country. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

They have generic, forward-sounding names like Horizon Science Academy, Pioneer Charter School of Science and Beehive Science & Technology Academy. Quietly established over the past decade by a loosely affiliated group of Turkish-American educators, these 100 or so publicly funded charter schools in 25 states are often among the top-performing public schools in their towns. The schools educate as many as 35,000 students — taken together they’d make up the largest charter school network in the USA — and have imported thousands of Turkish educators over the past decade. But the success of the schools at times has been clouded by nagging questions about what ties the schools may have to a reclusive Muslim leader in his late 60s living in exile in rural Pennsylvania . Described by turns as a moderate Turkish nationalist, a peacemaker and “contemporary Islam’s Billy Graham ,” Fethullah G?len has long pushed for Islam to occupy a more central role in Turkish society. Followers of the so-called G?len Movement operate an “education, media and business network” in more than 100 countries, says University of Oregon sociologist Joshua Hendrick. Top administrators say they have no official ties to G?len. And G?len himself denies any connection to the schools. Still, documents available at various foundation websites and in federal forms required of non-profit groups show that virtually all of the schools have opened or operate with the aid of G?len-inspired “dialogue” groups, local non-profits that promote Turkish culture. In one case, the Ohio-based Horizon Science Academy of Springfield in 2005 signed a five-year building lease with the parent organization of Chicago’s Niagara Foundation, which promotes G?len’s philosophy of “peace, mutual respect, the culture of coexistence.” G?len is the foundation’s honorary president. In many cases, charter school board members also serve as dialogue group leaders. Education officials who are familiar with them say the schools aren’t trying to proselytize for G?len’s vision of Turkey . While Turkish language and culture are often offered in the curriculum, there’s no evidence the schools teach Islam. Nelson Smith, former president of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, sees no evidence of an “active network. What I do see is a really impressive group of educators.” The Turkish-affiliated schools focus on math and science and often appear as top scorers on standardized tests. Still, lawmakers, researchers and parents are beginning to put the schools under the microscope for hiring practices — they import hundreds of teachers from Turkey each year — and for steps they take to keep their academic profile high. The schools’ unacknowledged ties to G?len, they say, mock public schools’ spirit of transparency. “That’s what I was always asking for,” says Kelly Wayment, a former board member and parent at Beehive Science & Technology Academy in Holladay, Utah. He has pressed for more than a year to get the school to acknowledge ties to G?len. “I said, ‘Parents have a right to know.’ ” Wayment says Beehive removed him from the board last year after he began investigating the decision to fire a popular Spanish teacher, saying it was based on a single classroom visit by the Tustin, Calif.-based Accord Institute of Education Research, an education services company with ties to a chain of California charter schools inspired by G?len. He complained to Utah state Rep. Jim Dunnigan, a Republican lawmaker, who launched an audit of charter school governance — the audit is ongoing. But Beehive’s Karlene Welker says Wayment “removed himself (from the board) by pulling his students out of the school.” Utah’s State Charter School Board launched an investigation last year after American teachers complained that Turkish colleagues got hiring and promotion preferences. The charter school board looked into Beehive’s ties to Islam and found them “circumstantial,” but a financial probe found that the school was $337,000 in the red — and that Accord officials had loaned it thousands. The board last April revoked its charter, but in June voted to keep the school open on probation. Dunnigan, the state lawmaker who requested the legislative audit, says the financial details, such as personal loans and public funds spent recruiting overseas faculty, are what concern him. “When they’re in such financial difficulty, should they spend $53,000 to bring these people over from another country?” But questions about hiring and academics also have arisen in Arizona, where Daisy Education Corp. runs five schools and has received certifications for 120 H-1B visas for foreign teachers since 2002, records show. In Texas, the Cosmos Foundation has filed 1,157 H1-B applications since 2001. It operates 25 Harmony schools statewide. Since 2001, Harmony has imported 731 employees using H-1Bs, surpassing all other secondary education providers nationwide. Parents last year also accused one Harmony school of “pushing out” underperforming students — a charge the Texas Education Agency confirmed. Ed Fuller, a University of Texas-Austin researcher, found that Harmony schools throughout Texas had an “extraordinarily high” student attrition rate of about 50% for students in grades six through eight. “It’s not hard to be ‘exemplary’ if you lose all the kids who aren’t performing,” Fuller says. Crossing the line? At minimum, the rapid growth of the Turkish-affiliated schools shows how the freewheeling world of charter schools has changed the face of K-12 education in the USA. In most cases, charters are loosely regulated in exchange for improved performance. A few schools are affiliated with religious groups or offer programs that others can’t. But in several cases, a school’s orientation has forced it to show that it’s not crossing lines and endorsing religion. Examples: •Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a Minnesota charter school authorized by Islamic Relief USA, a Virginia-based aid group. In 2008, the school ran afoul of state officials who said having teachers take part in voluntary Friday prayers could give students the impression that the school endorsed Islam. •Sacramento City Unified School District in California, which for 12 years has fought a lawsuit that says the city’s Waldorf schools are based on the religious beliefs of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Whether such schools continue to grow is no small question, since President Obama has made charter school expansion a priority. While the Turkish-affiliated schools disavow any connection to the G?len Movement, G?len himself maintains in legal filings that he’s the inspiration behind their growth. But William Martin of Rice University in Houston says educators’ assertions of “no organic connection” to G?len are accurate. Nonetheless, he says their efforts to minimize ties to G?len, likely from fear of being branded Islamists, bring “unnecessary and probably counterproductive” suspicion. “I do not think they are a sinister organization.” In an e-mail interview, Mehmet Argin, principal of Tucson’s Sonoran Science Academy, says his school’s parent corporation, Daisy Education Corp., “has no legal or organic ties” with other schools. He cautions against linking charter schools founded by Turkish-Americans directly to the G?len Movement “just because Turkish-Americans may be inspired by Mr. G?len.” In an e-mail interview, G?len denied any direct connection to these schools, rejecting the notion that there is a “G?len Movement,” but acknowledging there may be educators now in U.S. schools who have listened to his philosophy. “I have no relation with any institution in the form of ownership, board membership or any similar kind,” he said. A ‘third force’ G?len has pushed for more dialogue between the Western and Muslim worlds, yet he is a controversial figure in Turkey. The University of Oregon’s Hendrick, whose writings explore the G?len Movement, calls him “Turkey’s most famous religious personality.” His movement is considered the nation’s “third force” alongside the military and Turkey’s ruling Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi, or AKP Party. In 1999, after traveling to the USA for medical treatment, G?len was charged in Turkey with trying to create an Islamic state. Since then he has remained in Pennsylvania. After the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service in 2007 denied his bid for a visa as an “alien of extraordinary ability in education,” G?len sued, saying his followers “had established more than 600 educational institutions” worldwide. He eventually prevailed, earning a green card in 2008. But Turkish educators in the USA continue to disavow their ties. “G?len is both the reason behind his schools, and he has nothing whatsoever to do with them,” Hendrick says.