<p>GAINESVILLE, Fla. The University of Florida Athletic Association is donating $6 million to the university to support several academic programs threatened by state budget cuts, UF President Bernie Machen announced today.</p>
<p>Our athletics programs have had tremendous success during the past couple of years, Machen said. It takes a great academic university to be a top athletic university.</p>
<p>Machen announced the gift during todays UF Joint Civic Club Luncheon at the Hilton University Conference Center.</p>
<p>The money will be used in part to pay for the continuation of the Florida Opportunity Scholars program. Offered for the second year, the scholarships pay tuition, room and board for qualified students who are the first in their family to attend a four-year university and have family income less than $40,000. The program contributed to important gains in minority enrollment over the past year.</p>
<p>UAA has given nearly $40 million back to the university since 1990.</p>
<p>The Athletic Association has a long history of donating funds back to the university to fund academic endeavors and we are pleased to be able to make this contribution today, University Athletic Director Jeremy Foley said. </p>
<p>I was a first generation college student, raised by a single mother who barely made ends meet. Nobody threw any money at me! And I can tell you this: each time I upped my student loan, I thought long and hard about it. I lost some sleep over it. But it drove me to work that much harder. I eventually paid off my loans and never complained about it. </p>
<p>But this program is a waste of money and time. Most of the althletic profits should be shunted to improving the academic side of the university. But certainly some of the money can be directed at under-priviledged children, such as funding academic programs of a much younger age group. When those kids get to HS, if they desire to attend UF, they'll be much better prepared, and if they want it bad enough, they take out loans like I did.</p>
<p>"The money will be used in part to pay for the continuation of the Florida Opportunity Scholars program."</p>
<p>Actually the UAA is it's own seperate non-profit Corporation, they pay for the coaches salaries, facilities, and athletic scholarships. UF really has very little jurisdiction over this organization, and it's mostly Bull Gators that pay for their overall operating expenses. In my view any money from the UAA is good money (most athletic departments are a black hole to their respective universities, whereas ours is the 2nd strongest in the country). </p>
<p>Just remember they aren't diverting 100% of the $6 million to this program, only enough so they can say we are helping families that are making less than 40k a year. They never did a break-down of how they are bailing out Machen & company, so we can only speculate.</p>