James Madison University has found almost instant accomplishment at the FBS degree, both in soccer and men’s hockey. Additionally, The Dukes have relied on an extraordinary amount of funding from various JMU individuals.
In macroeconomic 2023, the James Madison athletic department allocated$ 68 million to the sport, and it reported funding of$ 53.3 million in annual student fees, which are a part of every JMU student’s tuition. It’s by far the largest amount of any common college in the country,$ 23 million more than Old Dominion’s pupil fee payment.
JMU’s academic education is$ 30, 790 per year for out- of- status kids and$ 13, 576 per year for in- position students. The necessary student charge, which is included in those numbers, is$ 5, 662 for 2024. That charge covers a number of things—transportation solutions, student health efforts, service maintenance—but by far the biggest part,$ 2, 362 per pupil per time, is earmarked for funding athletics.

The JMU men’s basketball team faces Wisconsin ($ 0 in student fees ) at 9: 40 p. m. ET Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The major budget Sportico has ever sourced annual revenue and expenses reports for every open athletic department in the top division of college football tops is$ 53.3 million, which is not only the highest complete it has seen in six plus years. It’s bigger than the total 2023 athletics operating budget for more than 40 FBS schools, and almost equal to James Madison’s entire athletics budget the prior year ($ 57.8 million ).
Framed another way, the student fee total is nearly 4x the revenue actually generated by the athletic department in fiscal 2023 ($ 13.4 million ) from tickets, media rights, donations and other income. As part of the transition from FCS to FBS, the Dukes will still be receiving total share of convention distributions. They will start playing in the Sun Belt meeting in 2022.
State law mandates that JMU’s student fees be limited to a certain portion of the funding for sport, which was 70 % in its earlier conference and presently 55 % as a Sun Belt member. A school was on a state-approved timeline to meet that need, according to an athletics official in an email, and credited the rising pupil fee total to a few specific finances increases.
Second, he said, the payment collections increased to cover$ 4 million in delayed debt payments, which the school was permitted to push up to alleviate budget issues during the COVID- 19 crisis. Next, JMU has relied on student fees to pay for additional revenue increases that may eventually be covered by the total Sun Belt income share. These increases include$ 1.7 million in increased travel expenses and$ 1.3 million in a state-required salary raise.
Prior to its Sun Belt move, the state presented and approved JMU’s plan to manage student fee revenue, according to a spokesman in an email. The university employs that plan, which allows for a period of seven years of fully conforming to the 55 % cap.

Only a small number of the top college sports departments ‘ athletic departments can finance their operations without using additional funds from the institution’s academic side. For the vast majority that rely on money from other parts of campus, they report those subsidies in four main categories: direct institutional support, indirect institutional support (athletics debt service, rent ), government support, and student fees.
Of those four, the direct institutional support is the largest among the country’s biggest public athletic departments, with more than$ 1 billion reported transferred in this manner by the FBS public schools in 2023, according to Sportico’s college finance database. Student fees are the second largest, at$ 668.5 million.
The football team at JMU went 11-to-1 this past regular season and spent a portion of the year ranked in the AP poll. The men’s basketball team won the Sun Belt tournament 31-23, earning its first March Madness appearance since 2013.
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