Results from a participation fee survey released by the Michigan High School Athletic Association on Wednesday revealed positive results for another year.
The survey confirmed that the rate of member high schools billing student-athletes for playing fees fell to its lowest clip in over two decades.
A total of 703 member schools (93%) responded to the survey and confirmed that just 38% of them, or 270 schools, charged participation fees in 2025-26, which amounted to a two-percent drop from the previous year, but more significantly from a big-picture perspective, a decrease of 34.5% from 2004-05. The report noted that fees peaked at 57% in 2013-14 but have hovered around the low-40s following the COVID-19 pandemic.
MHSAA, which began surveying schools on the subject beginning with the 2003-04 academic year, defines a participation fee as anything $20 or more.
All four school-size classifications saw decreases, led by a decrease of 7% among Class A schools down to 46%. Class B was down to 39%, while Class C and D schools each fell to 28%, including a six-percent drop for Class C schools from the prior year.
Thirty-three percent of responding schools responded that they charge student-athletes a one-time standardized fee, while 13% said that they assess fees based on tiers of the number of sports a student-athlete plays. Furthermore, it revealed that the median max amount a school charge for the year was $150 and the median annual max charged per family was $350. For those schools charging a one-time fee to cover all sports participated in, the median was $125, and the median was $80 per team for schools charging a fee per sport.
Results of this year’s survey as well as participation fee surveys from past years can be found at MHSAA.com.