URBANA – Students worried about what kind of soda they'll be able to buy at the University of Illinois might want to keep a hand on their wallets.

Administrators say Coke or Pepsi won't be able to pull UI athletics out of the red single-handedly, and they're looking for an assist from students.

The campus will present a long-range funding plan to UI trustees by May or June, and a student athletic fee appears to be a likely option.

"We have not settled on a strategy at this point," Chancellor Michael Aiken insisted last week.

Remedies discussed so far include:

– An athletic fee, though the size hasn't been determined.

– A $20 or so increase in the $90-per-semester general fee paid by students, to cover the debt service on the Memorial Stadium renovation. The athletic department is paying off the $16.8 million debt, which amounts to $1.3 million annually until 2022, Aiken said.

– Additional tuition and fee waivers. The campus already subsidizes $393,000 of waivers for athletes, though the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics funds nearly 10 times that amount through private donations.

– The use of tuition money to fund academic services for UI athletes, now paid out of the athletic budget.

– A state appropriation for athletics, which most other state universities receive.

Until now, campus subsidies for athletics have been indirect – the $393,000 in tuition and fee waivers plus about $1 million that the state pays to cover athletic employee benefits.

Aiken doesn't think the campus is crossing any line by proposing more direct subsidies.

"It's not that there's no state support, no campus support now. That's a considerable amount of money," he said.

"My feeling is that whatever we do, we must do with excellence. I think we aspire for that in our academic programs, and we need to have the same aspirations in other areas, including sports," he said.

Still, some trustees are squeamish, especially about a student fee.

"I've got some reservations about an athletic fee in principle," said Trustee Judith Reese.

Student Trustee Todd Wallace said a fee should be "the very last alternative" but seems resigned to the idea.

"I know this has been coming for a while," he said. "It seems like whatever happens, it's gonna end up coming from students. I wish it weren't like that. The budget is so incredibly tight. We squeeze every cent that we can out of our state funding, out of private funding.

"Unfortunately, the only thing left that's adjustable seems to be students' pocketbooks."

Five-year budget projections show the Division of Intercollegiate Athletics could be $1.6 million in the red by the 2001-2002 school year under even the most optimistic budget scenario. The department's fortunes hinge on football attendance, television revenue and other variables.

"What's alarming is that even under the best-case scenario, we end up with a deficit," said Associate Chancellor Judy Rowan, Aiken's liaison to the athletic department.

Rowan believes the campus will use a number of strategies to attack the deficit.

Part of the money will come from the $330,000 to $930,000 in new income expected from the "pouring rights" contract with Coke or Pepsi. But that isn't enough, Aiken said.

The other option under most serious study is a fee. Every other state public university with an athletic program has a fee, including UI campuses in Springfield and Chicago, Rowan said.

Student fees at Urbana now total about $1,000 a year. Aiken wants to keep any potential fee increase as small as possible, Rowan said.

As for the other options, Rowan said having students pay off the Memorial Stadium debt – as they do for the Assembly Hall, Illini Union and other auxiliary buildings – merely constitutes another kind of fee increase.

"As far as I'm concerned, an athletic fee would be an athletic fee, whether we talk about it in terms of debt or otherwise," she said.

However, the $1.3 million that athletics pays for debt service might constitute a "meaningful target" for an athletic fee, Rowan said.

Rowan believes the use of tuition or other academic funds for athletic expenses would be a last resort.

"That would divert dollars from the academic side of the house, which is not something that anybody over here wants to do," Rowan said.

Help from the Legislature isn't considered likely, either.

"Any time the Legislature helps with an issue like this, it generally ends up coming out of our bottom line someplace else," Rowan said.

The state spends about $4.5 million subsidizing athletic programs at other schools, but the Illinois Board of Higher Education has urged them to reduce their reliance on state funding.

The IBHE also has been leery of new student fees in recent years. The board would not have veto power over an athletic fee, but it approves other fees that support construction projects. It also plays a major role in determining the UI's overall budget.

"Obviously we can't be indifferent to that," Aiken said. "On the other hand, we've got a problem we've got to solve."

IBHE policy says any major restructuring of fees should be reviewed by a student advisory committee and submitted to a student vote in which a "sufficient number of students participate, so it accurately reflects student opinion," said spokesman Ross Hodel.

If the UI decides on a fee, Aiken said, he would discuss it with students first. He said he would use the student advisory committee recently appointed for the pouring-rights issue as a "sounding board."

The student Service Fee Advisory Committee, which approves other fee increases, also would be involved. And the fee would be submitted to a student vote, Aiken said.

"I know that there are a lot of students who would support it because it's for athletics, but I know there will also be a lot of students who won't support it," Wallace said.

Students polled at the Illini Union just before spring break weren't too enthusiastic.

"I would object. They're already charging us so much. I don't know what we'd get out of it," said senior Alma Arias.

First-year graduate student Alison Miller said she teaches athletes in some of her classes.

"They're getting a lot more money put toward them than the average student," she said.

Wallace said the fee would have to carry some sort of perk for students – better ticket discounts or free tickets, perhaps.

Trustee Thomas Lamont, who is a member of the UI's athletic board, said there are ways to make the fee attractive, such as linking it to other cultural events.

He sees a fee as a budget solution and a way to boost student attendance at UI games.

"I don't know what else you're going to do, besides a student athletic fee, that represents more than a temporary or Band-Aid approach," Lamont said.

Athletic fees are not common at other Big Ten universities. Students at Iowa pay about $28 annually toward debt service on Carver-Hawkeye Arena. And Purdue students contribute $11.25 a year to support athletics.

Wisconsin imposed a $10 athletic fee in 1990 to help balance the books, but it was dropped in 1995, said Diane Gotzion, accounting manager for the athletic office. "It was such a political issue with the students," she said, and the athletic budget has since stabilized.

Rowan said the UI's needs differ from other Big Ten schools.

Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State have huge stadiums that fill up year after year, she said. And Michigan's licensing revenue approaches $5 million a year – 10 times the UI's.

Minnesota and Wisconsin receive $2 million to $3 million state subsidies to support women's athletics, she added.

"We're just sort of caught between the ones that have huge revenue streams from big stadiums and a tradition of filling them, on the one hand, and those that know they can't do that and put in substantial amounts of university or state revenue on the other hand," Rowan said.