MANHATTAN -K-State Athletic Director John Currie announced Thursday night that the university is currently in the process of phasing out annual student fee allocation to intercollegiate athletics. 

In a letter to the University published Thursday night, Currie writes;

“As you may recall, when President Schulz and I arrived at K-State in June of 2009, approximately $2.6 million of our $44 million (6 percent) budget came from direct and indirect University funding (not counting the student fee allocation). Thanks to the generosity of our donors and fans, the growth of our Big 12 Conference revenues and careful fiscal management, we have been able to eliminate this funding source, enabling these dollars to be reinvested into critical academic needs across campus. This year, fiscal year 2016, we are the lone athletics program in the state of Kansas and one of only approximately 25 in the country to operate with no direct or indirect university funding or state support.

Our nationally-renowned students will continue to be a huge part of our ability to achieve the Vision of A Model Intercollegiate Athletics Program, and that’s why we continue to allocate the prime seating sections both court- and field-side in Bramlage Coliseum and Bill Snyder Family Stadium. But, we believe, given other critical student needs across campus, the time has come for us to phase out the annual student fee allocation to intercollegiate athletics. In this spirit, earlier tonight the SGA Privilege Fee committee proposed legislation to the Student Senate which, if passed, will reduce allocations to Athletics to $450,000 in fees in FY17 followed by $350,000 in FY18 and $200,000 for in FY19 with the anticipation that these allocations will then cease.”

You can read the letter in it’s entirety here!