<p>It is a big revenue generator but not really a business. Most departments, even in the Power5 conferences, run at a loss when you factor out cross-subsidies from student fees. </p>
<p>One must realize that some departments are fluff for any student. And some professors do not do their job, and because of tenure, their almost non-existent teaching is ignored, and salary increases are mandated by contract.</p>
<p>The most egregious case I know of is a professor who teaches a complicated and dangerous lab course that is four hours per session. He goes through the experiment in about 20 minutes as a demonstration, without heat or chemicals or anything near what is really going to happen, and leaves. The remainder of the time, the grad student assisting him is supposed to supervise students doing the experiment. Yet no one can do anything about this, and the professor gets paid for teaching the whole class. We are just waiting for a serious accident to happen :(</p>
<p>Remember also, classes which require the least effort and give out great grades will get very high student evaluations, and thus will keep being offered, and likely more sections will be added.</p>
<p>I still say some students who can’t read will not be able to handle community college and make big educational strides. These are students who didn’t learn, for many reasons, for the 13 or so years they’ve already attended school. Most community colleges do not have athletics. California’s do (at some locations) but that association requires participants to be enrolled in 12 credit hours, and 9 of those must be in courses that count toward the major, so the non-reading student would have the same problem he’d have at any D1 school - he can’t handle the required courses. If you were the student would you rather go to a community college with only Pell grant money (the rules say the student can’t receive institutional FA) or go to a D1 school and get a full ride? Student can’t read at either school, and must register for ‘real’ not remedial classes. Of course the student benefits more from the D1 school.</p>
<p>An athlete becomes a pro if he accepts money for playing in the minor leagues, so it is not an option to play minor league and then go to college. Ineligible.</p>
<p>Some students can live at home and go to a community college. And some students have no homes, or no homes after they graduate from high school, or no local community college to commute to. If the parents didn’t encourage learning to read by high school, I don’t think a nice home environment is going to suddenly appear so the student can go to community college. and live at home.</p>
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<p>Here are financial data from leading athletic departments: <a href=“NCAA Finances: Revenue & Expenses by School - USA TODAY”>http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/schools/finances/</a> . If you click on the individual school, you can drill down to get breakdowns of revenues and expenses. You will see that scholarships pale in comparison to the compensation paid to coaches and staff. A single football team with 85 scholarships might have an expense of 85 times $40,000 or $3.4 million, but the head coach’s compensation alone may exceed this. The coach is able to garner such lofty pay in part because compensation to players is limited by the NCAA, although the O’Bannon case has moved the ball somewhat, and Jeffrey Kessler may do likewise: <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/sports/jeffrey-kessler-envisions-open-market-for-ncaa-college-athletes.html”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/sports/jeffrey-kessler-envisions-open-market-for-ncaa-college-athletes.html</a> </p>
<p>There is always the question of whether the scholarships represent a cost to the school since they are a transfer from the athletic department to the school. If a school has persistent excess capacity in dorms and classrooms, then the true cost is small (just the “board”), but not if an athlete crowds out a full-payer. Some but not all of the expenditures on scholarships are true costs to the school. Conversely, many of the contributions to teams are payments to secure the best season’s tickets. This is just a tax dodge that allows Uncle Sam to pay part of the ticket price. </p>
<p>Football and basketball subsidize other sports. There is a regressive transfer of wealth when football and basketball players subsidize athletes on cross country, fencing, soccer, swimming and volleyball teams. </p>
<p>At unc the revenue sports scholarships are covered by rams club donations administered by the athletic dept . Those donations fund, also, other scholarships. I don’t know how it works at other schools. </p>
<p>I don’t mean it is a big business in the traditional sense, but there are many, many massive salaries being funded by this, and there is a massive tv business paying many others, not to mention the local business community. </p>
<p>This is a big part of why I continue to be astonished these kids can not afford even a pizza and have to work part time jobs to afford a night out…, Top to bottom the NCAA is regulated mainly to keep the salaries high. Jmo</p>
<p>I don’t see a way out of this. </p>
<p>The rams club donors are also the most consistent donors to capital drives and to various departments including the arts. </p>
<p>It’s tangled. And difficult to unthread. I don’t know how it works at other schools, though I would guess a similar way. I could be wrong. </p>
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<p>Sort of. But what is actually happening is that the huge bucks floating around the revenue sports translate into huge expenditures on things like athletic facilities, and then they bill some of those expenditures to minor sports. But if there were only minor sports, the lavish facilities with their huge costs wouldn’t exist. The swimmers could still swim and the field hockey players could still play, even if they didn’t have NFL-style weight rooms. </p>
<p>As an aside, I used coase’s chart to look up the revenues and expenses for San Jose State, a random midlevel state school near me. Ten million for coaching and staff-- I wonder how much the biology department makes. Seven million ($7 million!) per year is raised in student fees. </p>
<p>San Jose State is a school filled with students from families of modest income, and these students have to pony up seven million bucks in direct student fees to pay the bloated salaries of football coaches? Something is very wrong here.</p>
<p>It has been suggested that a death sentence in college football is the most appropriate punishment for UNC-CH; What say you parents of college students.</p>
<p>That’s what I mean by “it’s big business”. For a lot of wealthy people AND middle income people. This is how they make a living. Also, those who are employed by the NCAA. Also, colleges employ compliance officers. The regulation alone to make sure athletes don’t get any income costs more than a small stipend for poor students would cost. </p>
<p>And that’s why I think the athletes in revenue sports should get paid. Ten million dollars for the coaching staff at San Jose State, and the athletes get virtually nothing. Even if they get a full tuition scholarship, that’s less than $8K a year. So the athletes are working for subminimum wage, and the head coach gets $550,000 a year. That’s exploitation.</p>
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Your point is well-taken about athletic departments’ ability to dissipate surpluses. I should have said that at schools whose football and basketball teams make money, the teams subsidize other sports. Here is a link to revenues and expenses for top football programs. <a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciajessop/2013/08/31/the-economics-of-college-football-a-look-at-the-top-25-teams-revenues-and-expenses/”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciajessop/2013/08/31/the-economics-of-college-football-a-look-at-the-top-25-teams-revenues-and-expenses/</a></p>
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The most egregious example of subsidization of an athletic program is Rutgers. In 2013, Rutgers’ athletic department received a total subsidy of almost $47 million, about $10 million from student fees and $37 from “school funds.” Definitions can be found here: <a href=“Methodology for NCAA athletic department revenue database”>http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2013/05/10/college-athletic-department-revenue-database-methodology/2150123/</a></p>
<p>Rutgers is egregious for sure, but at least Rutgers is the flagship. San Jose State is just one of many second-tier state schools in California, and yet their students pay $7 million in direct fees, and over $10 million in “school funds.” San Jose State is not rolling in money! And that’s just one example of academics taking second place to sports.</p>
<p>How about Berkeley? They can afford almost half a billion dollars to build a new football stadium, but [they’re</a> closing Lick Observatory,](<a href=“http://www.ucolick.org/savelick/lick_future.html]they’re”>http://www.ucolick.org/savelick/lick_future.html) which actual Berkeley students and professors use to discover planets outside our solar system. Heaven forfend that scientific research get in the way of football. This entire enterprise is corrupt.</p>
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I watched “Ivory Tower” on my flight last week. I was so stunned by the Arizona State partying scenes, I had to watch the movie again on the way back. </p>
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<p>which gets Berkeley a better return on its money and its name out to more people? I bet it’s not the observatory.</p>
<p>Don’t conclude too hastily on that. Have you seen Cal football in recent years?</p>
<p>Cal lost again today; they were 1-11 last year. I’d say finding planets beats pathetic futility. </p>
<p>But that’s irrelevant. Cal is a university, not a sports franchise. Their job is teaching and research, not running unsuccessful minor league sports.</p>
<p>But the thing is, these schools are in the business of fielding these teams. They do so for a reason. </p>
<p>Actually, until I came on this board, I had never once heard anyone complain about colleges having D1 sports programs. I run in a pretty highly educated circle, and all I had ever heard was how excited someone was when their team was doing well, or bummed by injuries, etc. I’m not sure there’s much interest in getting rid of NCAA sports. At all. </p>
<p>A friend proposed that athletes ought to be offered the chance to earn an associates as well as BA, with remediation to any level necessary. I’d rather see a degree in sports with all core academic distributions met, with remediation to whatever level necessary. </p>
<p>Whichever way the future leads, I sincerely hope it leads towards some sort of useful education for these athletes. </p>
<p>I’d like to comment on the question of whether to blame (along with others) the students who took these paper classes. First, I’m not convinced that many of the athletes were tricked into believing they were going to get real educations in addition to playing football. I’m sure most of them knew better. Those who really wanted to get educations were able to do so. I think there’s a quid pro quo–you play football, and we’ll take care of you, including academics, scrapes with the law, etc. These “counselors” are really fixers. Nobody should really be shocked about this. I do blame the non-athletes who found out about and took these paper classes–it’s one thing to look for easy classes, but something else to take advantage of totally fake classes–when you don’t pay your dues for them by playing sports.</p>
<p>I like your analysis, Hunt. What those people are is as plain as day; “Fixers.”</p>
<p>To me, the chance to get an education is an amazing opportunity. I don’t blame the athletes if they are not prepared to take the classes. The non-athletes who took the sham classes are, in the end, cheating themselves. Personally, I think someone who is in college should also be taking responsibility for their education, regardless of who is paying. I’m not naive to think some partying would not take place, but I think we should hold young people up to standards. Certainly in the real world, their employers would. </p>
<p>Something about this whole culture upsets me to some extent. Kids talk about the “college experience” but what they are referring to doesn’t include working hard and studying. It’s fine to have fun and sports too, but the huge focus on sports in an academic setting seems out of balance. </p>
<p>What message are we sending a kid with a “wink wink” you get an A for nothing class? I would rather see the students produce some work, no matter what grade level they start out at. If they aren’t ready to write a college level paper, I’d rather see them write a lower level paper and grade them on how they improve over the semester than get an “A” for doing little or nothing. </p>
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They’re also cheating the taxpayers of North Carolina.</p>