Are college athletics good or bad?

[edinatlanta]

Sorry rjnutcase didn't bump this threak but...

Only 10 athletic departments gave more back to their schools than what the school subsidized the athletic programs.

http://chronicle.com/article/As-Spo...5V2dpenVlcmVEX2JWeXhCcmtDY09SbnFCYXNIY0hEcGpz

 

[SixOhNine]

Link fail.
"This content is available exclusively to Chronicle subscribers"

Like I'm going to subscribe to the Chronicle of Higher Education...

 

[edinatlanta]

http://www.omaha.com/news/metro/mov...cle_780bfecc-7256-11e6-aea6-8308160c53fb.html

But after UNO’s first year as a full-fledged member of Division I, it’s clear that competing at the NCAA’s highest level can also produce some scary budget numbers. The Maverick athletic department finished the 2015-16 budget year with a $1.8 million deficit.

Christensen and UNO athletic director Trev Alberts certainly don’t believe the numbers show the Division I move was a mistake...

Any arena profits were to flow into the athletic budget for other purposes. While the pro forma had called for the arena to make roughly $400,000, by the time Alberts put together his budget the expected gain had climbed to over $500,000. Those dollars never came in.

Operating and personnel costs were also $800,000 above projections.

Alberts said Division I schools such as UNO that don’t receive big TV money like those in the major conferences will always face budget challenges. But he said he still wants UNO athletics to balance the bottom line — including in the current year.

This year, UNO made $600,000 in budget cuts. It also is projecting a $400,000 increase in NCAA and conference revenue and $350,000 in added ticket dollars.

Like all other non-Power Five schools, UNO athletics relies heavily on campus subsidies each year to support the school’s sports programs. The department is set to receive $8.6 million in direct campus support this year, up over $300,000 from a year ago.

 

[Piobaire]

Come on, they fudge those numbers.

 

[edinatlanta]

Washington State University seems to be.....dare I say it....fudging numbers....

https://dailyevergreen.com/30112/news/athletics-accounts-for-half-decrease-in-reserves/

 

[edinatlanta]

The cost of recruiting athletes has doubled at top Texas colleges. At some schools, students help foot the bill.
The growth in spending is happening even at colleges whose sports programs can't sustain themselves financially.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/05/01/Texas-college-recruiting-costs-doubled-student-fees/

 

[ClasGreve]

Clearly, in one case or another, you can find self-sustaining, even profitable athletic programs. But if looked at in its entirety, as someone who has taken degrees at both an American and European university, I fail to see how college athletics are positive for American higher education.

As college athletics has expanded in size (in terms of the money involved), if it had the positive attributes many have attributed it, American universities, particularly those with large athletic programs, would have increased scholastic output and lower tuition fees. Instead, tuition fees have increased almost exponentially and American universities are crashing out of global academic rankings, such as The Times Higher Education's. Clemson, Texas Tech, and Auburn have all fallen out of the global top 500 in the past 3 years if I remember correctly. At the same time, European universities have generally stayed the same or slightly improved (thus going up in the rankings), whereas Asian countries have dumped vast sums of money into their universities and have shot up the rankings.

This is additionally problematic on two fronts. Firstly, today's job market is global, and despite what anti-trade Trump does, global candidates with English that often rivals, if not betters, the average American's (while often being able to speak at least one other language), will increasingly continue to compete for jobs at major, global companies that pay the best, offer good insurance/benefits etc. In addition, these candidates, at least in the European comparison (particularly Scandinavia) have much less educational debt. They can move easily, in addition to having the capital to take risks and found start-ups. They're not stuck with an average of $37,000 in debt.

The money argument is also dubious. The Ivies blow the doors off most schools with big programs in terms of endowments. Even in the case that a program is self-sustaining, it is technically still stealing money from education. The wealthy making these donations should be donating their money to academic programs (if the premise were correct), but, instead, it goes to support athletic programs that neither enhance a school's research output nor ROI on a degree. These donations then are often tax deductible, ensuring that the wealthy, particularly in the Southern states that need proper educational funding most, pay even less tax than they are already obligated to under state/federal law. This creates a situation that while America has many of the top universities globally, few Americans will ever step foot inside of one, thus relegated to one of the country's middling state schools, in reference to global rankings.

Much better to have a well-funded, streamlined education system with high per-capita quality à la Sweden than what the US is doing. The downstream effects of the glorification of college sports on American high schools must also be taken into effect. At that level, few programs are economically sustainable and represent a massive waste of taxpayer money, particularly some American schools struggle to have proper classroom equipment or properly pay teachers.

But there are benefits of college sports, sure. But the US needs to go back to the original tenants of athletic programs from the early 1900s. Perhaps get rid of American football, which, more than any other sport, represents a massive waste of money for most schools with a program given its high per capita cost. Or, as there clearly exists market demand for the sport, privatize them in a fashion similar to European football clubs.