In 1869–70 students were required to pay an “incidentals” fee of $2.50 per session, in addition to the $18 per session tuition. This fee, however, was not necessarily expended for student activities. The fee was increased by $1 in 1875 to pay for extra food and for nursing and medicine for sick students, to be “drawn on by the college physician.”
In 1920 students began a movement to obtain a fee, called a “blanket tax,” to cover admission to athletic events and to pay for publications. The fee would have provided students with privileges of the University YMCA or YWCA and the All Students’ Club and would have extended to all students (not just to subscribers or season ticket holders) the right to vote for the Publications Board members and the Athletic Council members. In 1922 the trustees declined to authorize the fee, apparently due to opposition to the $1.50 that would have gone to the YMCA.
In 1927 the All Students’ Club again agitated for such a fee. The trustees agreed to implement the fee if 75 percent of the students voted in favor of it. In February 1928, following a vote in which 82 percent of the students cast a positive vote for the fee, the trustees approved an activities fee for 1929 of which $7.50 went to athletics, with all students to receive a student ticket to all athletic meets conducted by the Athletics Association; $5.75 for publications, entitling each student to a subscription to the student newspaper, student literary magazine, and student humor magazine; $1.25 to debating; 25 cents to the Student Employment Bureau (now Career Services); 15 cents to the Men’s Glee Club; 10 cents to the Women’s Glee Club; 10 cents to the UT Orchestra; $1.25 to intramural sports; and 10 cents to the All Students’ Club (Student Government). The fee was dropped for 1933, as a Depression cost-saving measure, since the maintenance fee had to be increased by $10 to offset legislative cuts in the budget.
In 1938 a student referendum narrowly failed to recommend return of the fee. In 1939 the All Students’ Club and the campus newspaper advocated for return of the fee, and a referendum was again held, but the trustees did not institute the fee.
In the 1950s, students again requested the fee. In 1964 a broadly based Student Activities Fee was adopted to begin in 1965, which initially paid for the student newspaper, tickets to football and some basketball games, an addition to the university center, and construction of the Student Aquatic Center. The fee also contributed $1 million to the construction of the Clarence Brown Theatre. This fee was originally set at $15 per quarter, to be paid by full-time students.
In August 1971 the board of trustees sided with the Student Senate and retained the fee, although some students complained they received little of benefit from it, and Chancellor Weaver had decided to abolish it. The fee was retained with a major change—the Student Senate would receive no more funds for programs, projects, or publications. All projects (voter registration, course evaluations, etc.) had to be independently financed. Only the cost of the senate office would be covered by the fee. Fee collections were to be allocated within five categories: Cultural Affairs Programs (Cultural Affairs Board); Recreational-Entertainment-Social Programs (R.E.S. Board); Athletics Programs (Athletics Board); Publications Programs (Publications Council); and Student Governmental Services (Student Senate). The board also changed the name of the fee to University Programs and Services Fee.
On March 12, 2014, in reaction to the student-organized Sex Week, the state legislature passed a resolution (Senate Joint Resolution 626) instructing UT administrators to alter the student activity fee allocation system to permit students to opt out of providing funding for events they found to be “controversial or objectionable.” President DiPietro had previously agreed to institute such a measure, and it was implemented for fall 2014. Following passage of the resolution, State Senator Stacey Campfield retired bills he had introduced that sought to alter the way student fees are distributed at public institutions in Tennessee.