Two months after a Rutgers athletics financial report showed a $38.6 million shortfall in its $84 million operating budget, the university’s top faculty group offered a public rebuke for the program’s spending.
The Rutgers New Brunswick Faculty Council unanimously voted to pass a resolution deploring the deficit and calling on the athletics program to retain an outside consultant to review the department’s financial problems and prepare a "realistic’’ financial plan "that will eliminate the program’s deficits as quickly as possible.’’
I do not understand why schools have any athletics (antiquated and irrelevant to a colleges core mission) but audit the entire school, because it is not just athletic departments that need to be put on a leash…or where money goes into a black hole and disappears.
A much smarter guy who leads the BIG would strongly disagree. RU faculty are highly paid yet rank poorly on research funding and other measures. At least the RU AD has a plan to improve. Money on the way too
The situation at Rutgers is not unique. For example, at UCB:
“By another measure, Cal sports are in big trouble. After completing the most expensive college football stadium overhaul ever, the Golden Bears now owe more money than any other college sports program. Hobbled by debt service payments, the athletic department ran a $22 million deficit last year (2016) and expects to end this fiscal year deep in the red.”
That’s because Rutger’s Big Ten distributions haven’t ramped up yet (they have a 6 year period after joining when they don’t get the full distribution). The Big Ten distribution will be something like $40M+ in a few years.