Colleges cutting sports due to recession

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I have to side with the people who say cut sports first. While I’m sure sports can be a learning experience, there’s only so much a game can teach you. The primary “learning experience” at college is academic learning. Much of the “learning” that one gains in a sport can also be gathered outside of athletics. While athletics add to the college experience, they aren’t essential, and certainly aren’t worth cutting classes, cutting professors or professor salary, cutting overall financial aid, (or even cutting the quality of food, for that matter!), etc. </p>

<p>When people say that athletics are essential, it rather reminds me the residential life situation- both the on-campus experience and the athletic experience are overrated. Yes, living in a dorm certainly adds something to the college experience. That something isn’t necessarily good, but it’s something. (Of course, I’m biased; I fled to an off-campus apartment as fast as I could).</p>

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<p>And before that, Tim Duncan. People definitely know Wake, and they know NU too, because theyre a Big Ten school.</p>

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<p>I feel like the odd man out, but I really don’t want colleges (or at least CMU) to cut fencing. The sport has changed my life completely. I’ve gotten in shape, and more importantly it’s influenced my control over myself. When I started fencing, despite having less time, my grades went up the little they could, and I became a happier person in general. I understand that that Colleges and universities are institutions of learning, but I still think that sports play a large role in improving SOME student’s lives and productivity.</p>

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<p>No one is denying sports play a huge role in students lives, especially for some students who love their sport and excel at it, or have worked very hard. Sports encourage teamwork, diligence, school spirit, time management skills, build a sense of community on campus, provide stress relief, all that other stuff.</p>

<p>But when it comes down to it, most of us are in college to get a Bachelor’s degree, not to play Gymnastics for 4 years. Sorry Gymnastics teams acround America :frowning:
Like Differential said, those teams will become clubs. You can still play the sport, no one’s stopping you.</p>

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<p>This all relates to Title IX (which I love), however, football is NOT included in the numbers. A college does not balance off the 80-90 football players. They are excluded. All athletics other than football are included in Title IX.</p>

<p>Not sure how I feel about all these cuts as my son will play basketball in college (won’t be effected), while my daughter hopes to play volleyball (very well could be effected). While it is sad, I understand cuts need to be made.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately at many underfunded state schools it may come down to sports cuts vs. academic cuts</p>

<p>However, at schools like MIT that’s a false dichtotomy. Much of the “growth” in spending over the past ten [even twenty] years has been in administrative and general expense. The administrators, recklessly hoping on unlimited endowment growth, hired more administrators who developed more administrative programs and hired more staff and gave themselves raises and so on.</p>

<p>This same illogic also impacted the cost of academics to an extent since these administrators, armed with their hedge fund endowments, launched raids on one anothers best profs [and in particular profs in the state systems], promising higher and higher compensation packages, staffs and facilities, and bidding up the price.</p>

<p>At MIT, there are plenty of places to cut waste other than sports or academics. Just look at the categories of expense that grew at greater than the rate of inflation over the past ten years. The student body didnt increase in size over that period so you cant justify the increases on that basis. It’s mostly administrative bloat with more and more administrators dreaming up more and more projects for themselves to administer and hiring ever larger staffs, to justify their ever more generous comp packages.</p>

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<p>Could you provide a reference to this? I’ve never heard of this and I would be surprised if it were the case. I hope you’re right…</p>

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<p>I can understand reducing funding for some sports that don’t typically generate crowds or ticket sales. For big sports (ie football and basketball), they are pretty self-sufficient at most schools and pay for themselves (and then some). As I recall, the UNC men’s basketball team generated $26 million in revenue last year, much of which was given back to the university in the form of academic scholarships. Football teams that reach the big bowl games also routinely bring in millions of dollars to their institutions.</p>

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<p>Wow after reading about it, I may in fact be wrong. Several of my students have done reports on Title IX and every one of them have included this as part of their papers. I therefore believed it to be true. If I find anything definitive, I will post it. Sorry to have mislead you.</p>

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<p>The only thing I could really find about football and Title IX was from wikipedia. I haven’t tried to verify that information, but it stated that in an unusual case (their words) Western Kentucky had to upgrade the football program from DI-AA to DI-A in order to be allowed to give out 22 more scholarships for male athletes. Before that, they didn’t give out enough male scholarships.</p>

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<p>Forgot Johns Hopkins, dropping Crew.</p>

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<p>It’s all about our priorities, which have been out of balance for far too long.</p>

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<p>How many of these silly debates must we have.</p>

<p>US colleges are about educating the whole person and creating a whole community of diverse people. People who agressively pursue passions outside of the classroom are often the most successful people in life. They learn to integrate lessons outside the laboratory, book, etc. with other life skills learned on the court, field, range, and even the auditorium, theatre and other performance venues.</p>

<p>This whole sports are useless comes from the same mentality who argue ABC major is useless (no employment opportunities) why do we teach it? Oh great central planners of knowledge, lead us down the narrow path of wisdom so that we ar not distracted by life and what is meaningful to our culture.</p>

<p>And why is the ability to pursue a wide variety of activities at a high level (varsity sports, performance theatre, etc) important?</p>

<p>Well the rest of the world seems more enamored of our higher education than their own. Much as we don’t necessarily put out the most best test takers, we do create the innovaters and leaders who make this the most dynamic and successful nation on the planet. </p>

<p>You will find most of these leaders and innovators weren’t necessarily the top student in their class, but freely pursued other passions at a high level. </p>

<p>The European/Far Eastern models of higher education do a great job at creating narrowly focused (and easily managed) researchers and technicians, but little to stoke the human spirit that creates the great new ideas and businesses of the world.</p>

<p>And I think you will find that we are a greater magnet to top foreign students than their educational model is to our students.</p>

<p>If your priorities are learning how to color within the lines, cut varsity athletics, and the high level arts. You should be happy going to bi-directional state U. The rest of us would like to have a school where there are people with diverse intense interests outside of the classroom, even if those interests aren’t the same as ours.</p>

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<p>About Title IX:</p>

<p>There are a variety of tests used to determine compliance (school’s choice). IIRC, they are:

  1. Varsity Athletic slots directly proportional to the gender ratio at the school (typically used by male dominated schools).
  2. Varsity Athletic slots proprotional to a survey of athletic participation interest on the campus (very common).
  3. Varsity athletic slots proprotional to student participation in non-varsity (intramural) athletics (very common).</p>

<p>I haven’t looked at these regs in a while, so I may have missed something, but I think you get the general gist of things. They use rough measurements of population or low-level participation to determine if the high level participation is unfarily biased.</p>

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<p>As much as I would love to cut some of the “high level arts” at my university (that bi-directional state U) that isn’t my point. My point is to bring out the fact that nobody talks about cutting those things like people talk about cutting athletics. Why? Because athletics have gotten a bad name as being “dumb jocks.” Meanwhile, the artsy type are “so brilliant.” Of course, any intelligent person would realize that athletics and fine arts both have smart students and dumb students.</p>

<p>The university I attend has numerous campuses. The main campus, 4 or 5 “regional education centers” throughout the area, and then we have the University Farm, and our last one is the River Campus which includes about 90% of the fine arts department. Really the only thing from that department which is still on the main campus is marching band. Some people flock to this university because it appears to be dedicated to the arts-- It has a whole separate campus specifically for the arts! That’s why my roommate came here. </p>

<p>It has to be realized that there is much more to a college campus than the academics. Good or bad can be debated all day long. My thinking is if you want it to be strictly academics then you do away with ALL of the extras. Athletics, Arts, Clubs, etc That just isn’t going to happen.</p>

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<p>^ Actually it is going to happen. It’s called online college.</p>

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<p>As I posted earlier, I have a problem with the lack of balance. As a culture, we focus heavily on sports. This starts early and then extends to the college level. Take the local news, for instance. Local news stations devote a full 10 of 30 minutes to sports- six and ten pm editions. NO news about other student accomplishments. None. When that ten minutes, twice daily, of high school sports coverage is balanced out by arts, music, volunteer activities, and, yes, (gasp!) academically oriented activities such as debate, mock trial, student newspaper, state language competition, etc., then I will be more prone to listen to those who cry foul when sports budgets are cut. I welcome anyone to provide me with the name of a TV station that does otherwise, on a nightly basis. We are saturated in sports! </p>

<p>Our local U is putting the finishing “touches” on a new football stadium, complete with track, and sky boxes. Money is the driver, folks. Sports= money. We also love endless entertainment. </p>

<p>By the way, I have one kid who pursues passionate interests beyond sports, and one who is a “jock-ette.”</p>

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<p>Goaliedad - You made excellent points about why athletics and arts are just as important as academics, and I agree with them, but you’re living in an ideal world here. The fact is, the economy is in the toilet, certain colleges who aren’t as well endowed will have to make budget cuts. So cutting the Badminton team might make people upset - and understandably so - but if it comes down to cutting the Badminton team vs English dept, yeah, I’d say cut Badminton.</p>

<p>No one’s saying sports aren’t important, we know they cultivate interests outside the classroom, build leadership and character. No one’s stopping those athletes from playing the games, I think someone mentioned sports teams are becoming “clubs” so the athletes can continue with the sport. Cutting the Badminton team at a college won’t be the downfall of America, let’s not turn this into a huge deal. I feel sorry for the JHU Crew team, but money’s tight, what do you want them to do, get rid of the Chem professors instead? More students come to JHU for the strong sciences than for the Crew team. But people are outraged that they’re putting academics in front of some athletic teams.</p>

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<p>molly,</p>

<p>I have to disagree with you on club as a substitute for varsity athletics. The players are of entirley different approaches to the game. I’ll quote myself from a related thread on MIT’s cutback of sports…</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/702144-colleges-cutting-sports-due-recession-2.html#post1062414758[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/702144-colleges-cutting-sports-due-recession-2.html#post1062414758&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>BTW, I never said I was against athletic cutbacks. It just happens that there seems to be a crowd around CC (the ones who think taking that 13th AP course is more important than spending that extra study time doing something OUTSIDE the classroom) that is more than happy to cut every athletic endeavor on campus (particularly varsity) before the first dollar of academic money is cut. This is not a cut and dried decision.</p>

<p>Every school has to evaluate this balance based upon the population they wish to serve and their mission. Sometimes the marginal athletic programs are cut. Sometimes marginal academic programs are cut.</p>

<p>As a note to the MODS please merge this thread with the same titled thread in the Parent’s Forum. I hate having to cross post on 2 identically started threads.</p>

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<p>diontechrismas–why are all non-revenue sports stupid?</p>