Rate of MHSAA High Schools Charging Participation Fees Falls to Lowest in 22 Years
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 5, 2026
The annual Michigan High School Athletic Association participation fee survey completed for the 2025-26 school year continued to confirm the positive direction that has emerged this decade as the rate of member high schools charging student-athletes to play sports fell to its lowest in more than two decades.
Of the 703 MHSAA member schools (93 percent of membership) which responded to the most recent survey, only 38 percent (270 schools) charged participation fees in 2025-26 – a drop of two percent from the year prior and the lowest percentage since 34.5 percent of member schools reported charging a fee for the 2004-05 school year. Over the two decades between, the rate of high schools charging participation fees reached a high of 57 percent in 2013-14. Rates consistently have measured in the low 40s after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The MHSAA began conducting the participation fee survey with the 2003-04 school year. For the purposes of the survey, a participation fee is anything $20 or more regardless of what the school called the charge – registration fee, athletic fee, etc.
All four school-size classifications also saw rate decreases, with Class A schools leading the way with 46 percent charging fees – which was still a reduction of seven percent from 2024-25. Class B was down slightly to 39 percent charging for participation, while Class C schools were down six points to 28 percent charging and Class D schools were down four points also to 28 percent.
A standardized fee for each team on which a student-athlete participates – regardless of the number of teams – has remained the norm over the history of the MHSAA’s survey, and for the second-straight year 43 percent of schools charging a fee did so in this way during 2025-26. That was followed by 33 percent of responding schools charging a one-time standardized fee and 13 percent assessing fees based on tiers of the number of sports a student-athlete plays (for example, charging a larger fee for the first team and less for additional sports).
For 2025-26, the median maximum amount a school charged per student-athlete for the school year was $150, and the median annual maximum charged per family was $350. For schools charging student-athletes a one-time fee to cover all sports played, the median was $125. For schools charging a fee per sport, the median was $80 for each team.
The survey for 2025-26 and surveys from previous years can be found on the Pay-To-Play Survey page (direct link to this year’s results).
The MHSAA is a private, not-for-profit corporation of voluntary membership by more than 1,500 public and private senior high schools and junior high/middle schools which exists to develop common rules for athletic eligibility and competition. No government funds or tax dollars support the MHSAA, which was the first such association nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools. Member schools which enforce these rules are permitted to participate in MHSAA tournaments, which attract more than 1.3 million spectators each year.
Multi-Sport Participation Holds Steady in 2023-24, Continuing Increases Found Over Entirety of Study
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
January 16, 2025
The MHSAA’s sixth Multi-Sport Participation Survey, conducted last spring for the 2023-24 school year, showed for the third-consecutive year that nearly 45 percent of athletes at member high schools participated in more than one sport, while the entirety of the study continues to show that percentages of multi-sport athletes for all four Classes (A-B-C-D) have grown during the six years this topic has been studied in this way.
Early and intense sport specialization has become one of the most serious issues related to health and safety at all levels of youth sports, as overuse injuries and burnout among athletes have been tied to chronic injuries and health-related problems later in life. In early 2016, the MHSAA appointed a Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation as part of a continued effort to promote and protect participant health and address the issues leading to early sport specialization. The annual Multi-Sport Participation Survey was among results of the task force’s work.
The 2023-24 Multi-Sport Participation Survey received responses from 63.7 percent of member high schools and showed 44.8 percent of athletes at those MHSAA member high schools participating in two or more sports, a tenth of a percent increase from survey results in 2022-23 and half a percent increase from two years prior.
For 2023-24, 47.6 percent of male athletes and 41.4 percent of female athletes played multiple sports. Class D has enjoyed the highest percentage of multi-sport athletes over all six years of surveys, this time at 63.1 percent, followed by Class C (59.4), Class B (48.0) and Class A (38.2).
Over the six years of this survey, data also has shown slight increases in multi-sport participation in all four classes. Class A has risen from 35.9 percent in 2017-18 to 38.2 in 2023-24. Class B has risen from 46.7 to 48.0, Class C from 55.2 to 59.4 and Class D from 58.1 to 63.1 over those six years.
The MHSAA Task Force also recommended measuring multi-sport participation in MHSAA member schools to recognize “achievers” – that is, schools that surpass the norm given their enrollment and other factors that affect school sports participation.
Battle Creek Harper Creek, Detroit Cody and Grand Rapids Northview have appeared among the top 10 percent of their respective Classes five of the six years the survey has been conducted. Five more schools have appeared among the top 10 percent of their Classes four of the six years: Decatur, East Grand Rapids, Manton, Parma Western and Warren Michigan Collegiate.
In Class A, Macomb L’Anse Creuse North (94.7 percent) and Battle Creek Harper Creek (72.4) posted the highest percentages of multi-sport athletes for 2023-24, with Grand Rapids Northview (68.1), Berkley (65.0) and Kalamazoo Loy Norrix (64.3) also reporting reaching at least 60 percent. In Class B, four schools reached at least 65 percent multi-sport participation – Parma Western (78.0), Constantine (75.4), Clare (65.7) and Reed City (65.4).
Class C saw six schools reach 80 percent this past school year – Warren Michigan Collegiate (91.7 percent), Flint Beecher (91.3), LeRoy Pine River (89.5), Cass City (84.3), Decatur (83.3) and Manton (81.4). Four Class D schools responded at higher than 90 percent multi-sport participation – Gaylord St. Mary (92.9), Lake Leelanau St. Mary (91.7), Wyoming West Michigan Lutheran (90.9) and Deckerville (90.7) – followed by Marcellus Howardsville Christian (88.9), Morrice (86.8), Ewen-Trout Creek (85.7), Vestaburg (85.5) and Alanson (85.0).
Click for the full summary report on the Multi-Sport Participation Survey.