One of the things that truly pisses me off about the athletic departments, "make money" argument is their accounting practices. These major universities have billions of dollars worth of athletic facilities. That is an asset. What rate of return is the university getting for that asset?
In other words, if they have a billion dollars in facilities, it should be returning a market rate of 7%, or a 70 million dollar a year hole before they start. How many kids can be put through school on that annual 70 million. The local state school instate tuition is about 10 grand a year. That's 7,000 local kids tuition covered before the first ball is snapped, dribbled, knocked over a fence.
Excellent point. The education industry wraps itself in a cloak of virtue and professes to seek only the common good and betterment of its students. In all of modern history, this public perception of education's charitable purpose has protected the education industry from business accountability (really, social and political accountability as well).
The broadcast rights for top-tier athletics programs are also worth millions. Same with the athletic gear contracts (e.g., Nike paid the Ohio State $252 million to provide them gear).
If schools are raking in enough cash to pay Nick Saban $8.6 million to coach ~15 football games, why are out-of-state students forced to pay $30,000+ in tuition? It's really mindboggling and the injustice seems so clear.
Consider these numbers:
Penn President Amy Gutmann made $2,930,315 in 2017.
Georgia State President Mark Becker made $2,806,517 in 2019.
TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini Jr. made $2,644,209 in 2017.
USC President CL Max Nikias made $2,404, 232 in 2017.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger made $2,211,069 in 2017.
These education businesses would shut down immediately if the spigot of taxpayer funds was twisted off. Us regular folks have a huge chunk of our paychecks siphoned off for taxes and it pays for this garbage.
But anyone who questions this grifting operation is smeared as anti-education, anti-intellectual, anti-young person, anti-minority (even though there's good evidence that ludicrous tuition pricing disproportionately harms minorities), and so on. There needs to be accountability on the cost side of the education ledger.
One of the things that truly pisses me off about the athletic departments, "make money" argument is their accounting practices. These major universities have billions of dollars worth of athletic facilities. That is an asset. What rate of return is the university getting for that asset?
In other words, if they have a billion dollars in facilities, it should be returning a market rate of 7%, or a 70 million dollar a year hole before they start. How many kids can be put through school on that annual 70 million. The local state school instate tuition is about 10 grand a year. That's 7,000 local kids tuition covered before the first ball is snapped, dribbled, knocked over a fence.
Excellent point. The education industry wraps itself in a cloak of virtue and professes to seek only the common good and betterment of its students. In all of modern history, this public perception of education's charitable purpose has protected the education industry from business accountability (really, social and political accountability as well).
The broadcast rights for top-tier athletics programs are also worth millions. Same with the athletic gear contracts (e.g., Nike paid the Ohio State $252 million to provide them gear).
If schools are raking in enough cash to pay Nick Saban $8.6 million to coach ~15 football games, why are out-of-state students forced to pay $30,000+ in tuition? It's really mindboggling and the injustice seems so clear.
Consider these numbers:
Penn President Amy Gutmann made $2,930,315 in 2017.
Georgia State President Mark Becker made $2,806,517 in 2019.
TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini Jr. made $2,644,209 in 2017.
USC President CL Max Nikias made $2,404, 232 in 2017.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger made $2,211,069 in 2017.
These education businesses would shut down immediately if the spigot of taxpayer funds was twisted off. Us regular folks have a huge chunk of our paychecks siphoned off for taxes and it pays for this garbage.
But anyone who questions this grifting operation is smeared as anti-education, anti-intellectual, anti-young person, anti-minority (even though there's good evidence that ludicrous tuition pricing disproportionately harms minorities), and so on. There needs to be accountability on the cost side of the education ledger.