When it opens this fall, Penn's Pottruck Health and Fitness Center will be the newest athletic facility in the Ivy League -- and it will come with the heftiest price tag, too.
The University announced last month that starting in September, all undergraduates must pay a $200 recreation fee for facilities provided by the brand new Pottruck gym next to Gimbel Gymnasium, regardless of their use of the facility. This fee more than doubles the optional $75 Katz Fitness Center membership fee of past years and makes Penn's amenities among the most expensive for students nationwide.
But some say that for more space and up-to-date equipment, the price is right.
"I think that $200 sounds pretty reasonable," said Bill Canning, director of recreational sports at the University of Michigan. "It's right there in a good ballpark."
Penn is now one of two Ivies with a mandatory recreation fee -- Columbia University also began charging its students an obligatory $100 per year when it renovated its athletic facilities.
"We added about 7,000 square feet of fitness space in 1996 to complement the existing recreational facilities," said John Reeves, Columbia's director of physical education and intercollegiate athletics. "At that time, we added a facility use charge for students, faculty and staff. All students pay."
Cornell University, on the other hand, has an optional $130 fee, which includes fitness classes, an amenity for which Penn students will have to pay in addition to the mandatory fee.
The administrations of the rest of the Ivy schools consider use of their schools' recreational facilities as part of tuition -- and of those five, all except Brown charge lower overall tuition than Penn.
But although Penn's new price is on the high end of the spectrum, it is still not as steep as at some other universities around the country.
Canning noted that a number of schools with athletic center renovation plans have upped their annual recreational fees past the $300 mark. The University of Illinois just added $77 per semester to its existing $86 fee, and Ohio State University will charge students $80 per quarter for its new facilities.
And in spite of some outcry on Penn's campus over the rise in cost, many argue that the $23 million facility, which will be outfitted with additional space and new equipment, is worth the extra cost.
Harvard University Associate Director of Athletics for Intramural Sports John Wentzell said that while it may cost nothing for students to use the university's 70-year-old Malkin Athletic Center, they get what they pay for.
"Yes, it's free, but honestly, we don't have the greatest rec space available here," Wentzell said. "It's never been a big priority, which is unfortunate."
"There are long lines and a lot of unhappy people," he added. "When it comes to rec facilities, Harvard's trailing in the Ivies."
Pottruck, which began construction last April, will include 65,000 square feet of new space and 80,000 feet of renovated space, and Wentzell said that Penn's higher cost is understandable if the facilities meet the student body's needs.
"They're nice, but they're small," Wentzell said of Harvard's recreational spaces. "I've always thought they would be perfect if we were Bowdoin [College] with 2,000 people instead of Harvard with 20,000."
Harvard is not the only school where low fees are indicative of insufficient athletic facilities.
According to Canning, Michigan undergrads pay a mandatory $45 each year for access to three indoor facilities, two of which are nearly 30 years old and one that is 75 years old.
"Our fee is very inadequate to what we want to do," Canning said. "We have about $70 million worth of renovations we want to make, so to meet those goals we'd have to charge $210 per year."
But there are several universities out there with facilities that are both state-of-the-art and a great deal.
Free to all Yale University students, Payne Whitney Gym -- a 70-year-old building that was renovated in 1998 -- includes access to a field house, two swimming pools, an indoor running track, a squash center, a 13,000 square-foot fitness center and instructional classes, according to Larry Matthews, Yale's associate director of athletics.
"Students do, however, have to pay to use some of Yale's other athletic and recreational facilities, like the golf course and the indoor tennis center," Matthews added.
And the University of California-Los Angeles, which is known for its huge array of modern athletic amenities ranging from three gymnasia to a rock-climbing wall to windsurfing and sailing at nearby aquatic centers, allows students to choose which activities they wish to partake in and pay for them individually.
But even though Penn's price may seem to some students like a gouge, a $200 annual fitness fee is a steal compared to athletic facility costs beyond the University setting.
"A full service gymnasium/fitness facility would cost a good deal more in the commercial marketplace," Matthews noted.
Joining a fitness club frequently costs twice or even three times as much as what Penn is planning to charge.
"Consider it another way," Matthews said. "If the fee were $200 and a person came to the facility and worked out 200 times during the school year, the average cost of $1 per visit would be a pretty good value."
