Summer School students will have to pay a $20 fee for athletic participation tickets they purchase this year, an increase of $5 over last summer's price.

Each ticket entitles a student to participate in a single activity for the duration of the summer session. Students may purchase tickets for the rowing, sailing, swimming or sailing facilities.

The increase stems from "rising operational costs," Baaron B. Pittenger Jr., associate director of athletics, said yesterday.

Pittenger said the Faculty Committee on Athletics proposed the price rise, which Dean Rosovsky approved last winter.

The idea of a summer activity fee is "really awful," Thomas Barber '78, a Summer School student, said yesterday.

"It's free during the school year. Harvard is rich enough to pay for it," Barber said.

Louis Sheehan, another Summer School student, disagreed with Barber.

"There's no such thing as free. I think it's good that only people who want to use the facilities have to pay for them, instead of forcing the entire student body to pay an adjusted room and board or tuition fee to cover athletics," Sheehan said yesterday.

David Lewis, another Summer School student, yesterday called the fee "lousy," because it forces students to pay for athletic opportunities the federal government supposedly guarantees all students.

"In Rico, we would say 'cuorpo sano, mento sana,' which means 'If your body is all right, your brain would be also," Lewis said.

"Harvard should realize that the intellectual capacity of the student is a product of his physical capacity," he added.