Good opportunity for colleges to dump non-revenue producing sports

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's actually Time for colleges and universities to dump provosts and vice presidents and the offices that go along with the position. That's where our colleges can make huge cuts today

THIS!!! It’s been proven time and time again that the administrative bloat has absolutely exploded in the past few decades. No more.

It is the administration bloat that led to explosion of tuition increases. Plus buildings. And have you seen the food choices in the dining halls? Need to cut those back. My public state school kid has choice of 2 cereals. The private school has a whole wall of choices.

You think that is going to affect the cost of college? Fewer choices of cereal? DO you realize the nonsense of this post?

[Anonymous]

Colleges are competing in the quality of dining fare, which is driving up fees. Of course, one does have to admit that PP's comment on cereal choice is idiotic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yet the students on those teams are precisely the type of students most colleges and universities want. Why? Because those scholar athletes bring something special to the table. They are leaders. They are determined. They understand the concepts of effort and self-regulation. They get along well with others because they are used to working on a team. They work hard because they understand that strong input results in strong output. It would be extremely shortsighted for any university to start cutting sports teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yet the students on those teams are precisely the type of students most colleges and universities want. Why? Because those scholar athletes bring something special to the table. They are leaders. They are determined. They understand the concepts of effort and self-regulation. They get along well with others because they are used to working on a team. They work hard because they understand that strong input results in strong output. It would be extremely shortsighted for any university to start cutting sports teams.

You have got to be kidding.

You must not know any scholar athletes.

They are not the majority or even close to being a majority. They are few and far between.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Colleges are competing in the quality of dining fare, which is driving up fees. Of course, one does have to admit that PP's comment on cereal choice is idiotic.

Dorms are now luxury apartments, which also increases costs unnecessarily.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges are competing in the quality of dining fare, which is driving up fees. Of course, one does have to admit that PP's comment on cereal choice is idiotic.

Dorms are now luxury apartments, which also increases costs unnecessarily.

Sorry, this may be true at some residential colleges but not at most, and the tuition costs (list prices) are pretty uniform from High Point to Ivies.

Any discussion of college cost has to start with basic economics and supply and demand. What any product costs to make has nothing to do with what it sells for. (Just ask the oil industry about that this week).

As for expenses, the way colleges distribute financial aid has massively more impact on their bottom line than the expenses of meal plans and dorms (although I am not saying those things have no impact).

[Anonymous]

Sports aren’t about money. The best things about sports have nothing to do with profits and every sport that has become billion dollar enterprise has suffered. The richest soccer leagues are soulless and filled with prima donnas who are ruining the game. American football is a spectacle that has nothing to do with the sport. Sports build character and create camaraderie and teach life lessons. Making them about money is folly.

[Anonymous]

I work at a highly ranked university with a robust athletics program. Cuts in programs at big/elite schools won’t happen, for two reasons: first, Title IX (unless DeVos uses the pandemic as an excuse to suspend/kill it, which seems like the sort of thing this administration would do); second, American cultural glorification of athletes.

The fact that so many CEOs were college athletes isn’t the endorsement of college athletics a PP thinks it is; rather, it’s an indictment of the narrow way we view the qualities that make for successful leaders—competitive, driven, privileged, white, male. Lax bros don’t run Wall Street because they are smarter or better; they are simply protecting their own privilege—and they can get away with it in part because we’ve all bought into the idea that athletes are great leaders and that leadership in business/life is analogous to leadership on the field.

All of which is to say, barring a radical change to Title IX, not much will change. The wealthy white people whose sons play for their college golf team will not allow the unprofitable men’s golf team to be cut. Which means the unprofitable women’s golf team won’t be cut either. Etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges are competing in the quality of dining fare, which is driving up fees. Of course, one does have to admit that PP's comment on cereal choice is idiotic.

Dorms are now luxury apartments, which also increases costs unnecessarily.

It's all BS. When I went to Michigan in the 1970's, the dorms were slightly above army barracks. Now they are like villas and the off-campus housing is more luxurious almost anything I have ever lived in. And all the associate deans they have now? Doe the really need one for diversity for every, single school at U of M? What do these people do all day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why should the criteria be making money or breaking even? Virtually no drama, orchestra, or other programs in the arts make money for colleges, so should those all be cut as well? Colleges provide those programs and non-revenue sports because they want to attract a wide variety of students to campus, not because they are potential profit centers (although alums who played college sports almost always contribute more to the school than the average non-athlete alums, and colleges definitely take that into account).

Also, have you seen the stats about the percentage of female CEOs who played sports in college? It’s quite striking how many did. There are strong connections between playing sports at a high level and future earning potential, scoff as you may at all the athletes you feel are inferior to you or your kid.

BUT...schools don’t offer drama scholarships; they do offer full-ride athletic scholarships AND that full ride is being subsidized by his/her peers who ARE taking on debt so your “athlete” can go for free.

[Anonymous]

I always wonder what % of these kids are actually getting sports scholarships? Are all these swimmers, x country, field hockey, women's hockey, volleyball players going to college for 100% free (tuition & room and board)?

[Anonymous]

^ a bunch get $. Maybe not full, but $. It’s so dumb! It’s why the average kid takes on more debt than necessary. Student fees should cover other kids tuition.

[Anonymous]

^Should not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always wonder what % of these kids are actually getting sports scholarships? Are all these swimmers, x country, field hockey, women's hockey, volleyball players going to college for 100% free (tuition & room and board)?

Depends on sport and school. But each team gets a certain number of scholarships. Many kids on teams aren’t on athletics scholarships, particularly in sports like tennis, golf, crew, etc.—but they do get preference in admissions. This is why the admissions scandal was possible; corrupt coaches could put kids on teams without anyone noticing/caring because the kids weren’t getting aid—on the contrary, they were full-pay, which helped the universities’ bottom lines!

[Anonymous]

Title 9 is the law and in many cases the only way some kids can get to college. Girls athletics will not be cut as it is against the law--Title 9.

Athletics offers activity options away from the drinking culture on campuses.