The Real March Madness: Students And The State Subsidizing College Sports Vanity Programs
The Manhattan Institute's Jared Meyer and Neil Deininger question the vast subsidies going to college sports programs:
While all of their teams lost in the second round of the basketball tournament, the universities of Massachusetts Amherst, Delaware, Western Michigan, and New Mexico State made the final four of subsidies received by their athletic departments. These four public universities each gave over $19 million just to run sports programs.When athletic departments cannot cover expenses, they look for support from elsewhere in the university budget. The NCAA defines subsidies as everything not generated by the department's athletic functions. This usually takes the form of student fees and institutional support. For public schools especially, this money also comes from taxpayers.
Our final four teams are not alone--the tournament based on subsidies was highly competitive. Of the 45 public university teams in the tournament, 41 athletic departments received subsidies that exceeded $420 million in total. Of this amount, $136 million came from student fees and an additional $284 million came from non-athletic school funding.
...Successful sports teams can be advantageous for universities. Being selected for the NCAA tournament boosts a university's profile and usually increases applicants. However, handing out more subsidies to athletic departments is no guarantee of success.
Rutgers University had the biggest athletic department subsidy last year. Rutgers has not made the NCAA Tournament since 1991 and has never been to a BCS bowl football game. Regardless of past disappointments, Rutgers athletics received a $47 million subsidy in 2013, $37.1 million of which was direct institutional support. All that extra money did not keep the basketball team from falling into scandal last year, when the school's athletic director and basketball coach were fired for hiding player abuse.
In 2009, Rutgers finished a $100 million project to expand its football stadium, of which $92.9 million is still owed. In 2013, Rutgers paid $6 million just servicing this debt. At the same time, tuitions and fees for New Jersey residents have risen to over $13,000, making Rutgers one of the most expensive public schools in the country. But at least students can cheer for a losing team to distract them from impending tuition payments.
Rutgers receives more than a fifth of its budget from the state, so New Jersey taxpayers are helping the school to finance what is essentially a $100 million-plus vanity project. This is not an isolated case. All over the country, schools are competing more heavily on who can spend the most on athletics, not who can best prepare students for the difficult job market. University presidents love posing next to big trophies, but they should instead be more focused on delivering students quality, affordable educations.
And from the "some students are more equal than others" file:
Western Michigan and New Mexico State spend $13,782 and $10,454 on academics per student, but spend an additional $70,000 on each student athlete.
One of the original rationales for college sports was that they (or at least football) pay for themselves by persuading alumni to contribute money to the college (or at least buy season tix from the alumni association).
I don't know how well this still works (or doesn't), but the fact that you haven't told that part of the story sticks out like a sore thumb.
jdgalt at March 30, 2014 8:22 AM
I've probably said it before, but one of the times I was angriest was during registration at college. My father died in my freshman year, so I worked to pay my own tuition.
I had just gone through the course-selection bazaar, and was standing in line to pay. The tall black guy ahead of me handed over his slip, and the school handed him a check. He was a basketball player.
I have rarely been more pissed off - it was like I was writing a check to pay some idiotic athlete. Moreover, the school had a whole special set of classes for athletes, so that they could actually manage not to fail out.
a_random_guy at March 30, 2014 8:50 AM
This wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but interesting: http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2023010337_edittuitionwaiverxml.html
If I read this correctly the Univ. of Washington athletics program makes a profit and gets a subsidy to help with women's sports.
The Former Banker at March 30, 2014 12:07 PM
Usually the books have been cooked when Universities claim their athletic departments make a profit.
One way to do this is to leave out the costs of construction for athletic facilities, by claiming that they are used as legitimate classroom space for PE, etc.
I have relatives who live in Washington state. They were pretty outraged that the University of Washington has recently spent over a hundred million dollars on a new locker room. I don't blame them.
Isab at March 30, 2014 1:33 PM
What I want to see is the NCAA students unionized for health care. The compensation is the $60K/year scholarships.
So what I'd love to see happen is the Florida Gators lacrosse team go on strike for something. That means that the Florida Gators basketball and football teams would also have to be on strike.
How many of millions of dollars would be lost by the school because they can't play in the games until they settle with the lacrosse team?
Would the administrators put up with the union's demands? How will they handle the real world invading on the college campus?
Jim P. at March 30, 2014 2:03 PM
I rather suspect the Florida Gators lacrosse team will lose that fight. Why would the football or basketball teams be a part of that? Then we have Title IX. If the women don't want to strike, then what? The law says...
My prediction is that Northwestern drops sports for a year, and the athletes who want a union drop out.
MarkD at March 31, 2014 5:39 AM
Typically the way unions work it is that if they work in a union facility then all union workers won't cross the picket line.
So the United Mine Workers go on strike at the Black Apple mine for safety reasons. Then the IBEW (electrical workers) and other unions are obliged to not cross the picket line as well.
So the college decides that the lacrosse team needs to maintain a 3.0+ GPA to keep their scholarships while the football and basketball teams only need a 2.0+ GPA. So the lacrosse team goes on strike. The football and basketball teams are obliged to not cross the picket line. Especially as they are all in the same union.
Add in that the way the NCAA is currently setup there is a one year period that athletes can't play after a transfer of schools unless given an exemption (ex. Penn State students).
Jim P. at March 31, 2014 8:22 AM
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