CCU ranks No. 1 ... but it’s in ‘crippling’ student fees. What is the ‘Coastal Problem’?

Ben Morse
·3 min read
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Coastal Carolina University’s students pay way more than others for university athletics.

Students at Coastal pay an athletic subsidy of $3,634, the most of any Football Bowl Subdivision, FBS, school in the NCAA, according to data published on X.

“WTF is going on at Coastal Carolina, where 14% of their ENTIRE SCHOOL BUDGET is being blown on athletic (department) subsidies at a school that helps serve many (first-generation) and (low-income) students,” wrote Tony Altimore, a strategy consultant and managing director at the consulting firm Altimore Collins & Company on X. “That’s insane, and it’s a disservice to the CCU’s students and SC taxpayers who are footing that bill, despite bogus excuses otherwise.”

The data, pulled from Sportico’s College Sports Finances Database, which obtains its information from public records requests, showed that CCU students at $3,634 paid almost 500 dollars more for athletics in the 2023 fiscal year than the second-highest paying FBS school — fellow Sun Belt Conference member South Alabama with an athletic subsidy of $3,143 per student.

For context, students would pay more than $14,500 in an athletic subsidy if they attended CCU for four years, almost what an out-of-state student would pay for one semester of tuition at Coastal, according to the university’s website.

Furthermore, students at college powerhouses like the University of Alabama, University of Georgia and Ohio State University either paid zero subsidies or less than $70 during the 2023 fiscal year for their athletic programs, according to the post. The report also noted that the data was preliminary.

Altimore wrote that he supports subsidizing athletics and enjoys the Sun Belt Conference’s work.

However, he added in a subsequent post highlighting athletic subsidies as a percent of the total university budget that such a heavy burden could be “crippling” on a student body. Especially one like CCU, where 27 percent of new students are first-generation, according to the university’s website.

Despite his critique of Coastal, Altimore added that he loved what Coastal was doing building its athletic program, calling CCU an “awesome school” when speaking to The Sun News. Indeed, Sportico’s database reported that the CCU athletic department’s total operating expenses for 2022-23 were about $46 million, which is the third-most in the Sun Belt Conference behind Appalachian State University and James Madison University.