<p>It seems that more than a few people are still thinking that college athletics is a way to finance a college education, unfortunately we are seeing that it isn't with U. of Maryland and Rutgers both going to the Big-10 conference primarily because of money. The Big 10 conference is about big time in sports(talent level), education reputation/opportunities and research dollars and with that it means that these programs need to spend money to get more money.</p>
<p>so, sports isn't a good way to even think of financing a college education.</p>
<p>Sorry - I’m not following your logic. I recently read that Rutgers rowing, for example, will likely (hopefully?) be able to become fully funded (20 scholarships) because of the switch in conferences. I am DEFINITELY not savvy enough to understand the logic behind conference switches, but I don’t see the impact on athletic scholarships. Help me out.</p>
<p>The logic behind the conference switching is money. You can forget about all the hoopla about cooperative technology research or whatever manure the Administration is try to sell to the public. Capitalism pure and simple. Money comes from TV Network contracts that are negotiated by the conference representatives. The sports that generate this income are football and basketball. The non-revenue sports are subsidized by the revenue sports in most cases, but most D1 programs are not profitable. This has no impact on athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>I would like to reinforce Schoolhouse’s more global point that athletics are not a bankable plan for financing your college education.</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, our high school only sent one athlete on to a “full ride” from last year’s class. The sport was football, the school D2, and the tuition half of the money came from an academic schoolship which would not had happened had this kid not also had a 4.0. Among the swimmers who graduated last year, several received academic merit aid at D3 schools that took at least some of the sting off their bill. Not sure how much of that would have been granted without the hook of the sport.</p>
<p>Somewhere I read that if you only have $500.00 to spend to help get your kid into college, you don’t spend it on coaching, or a professional video, or any type of recruitment service, or even to attend a showcase event where a coach <em>might</em> spot them. That money should be spent on SAT prep courses.</p>
<p>Rutgers dropped how many programs to fund the football stadium renovation three years ago? Maryland dropped 11 athletic programs last year, and point is both have said this move is financial and it works for them. Further stating that it will add financial stability to there athletic dept. OSU has a 100 million dollar athletic budget, funded through football/basketball and the Big 10 Network–even on the lower end Northwestern is a 18-27 million sports budget. So in exchange for the access to Eastern corridor and DC/Virginia-Maryland those two programs will gain another 5-8 million for there athletic budgets immediately with the hope of adding another 5-10 million.</p>