U’s Squander Money on Sports, Even During Recession

We all know the drill by now: Faced with a major financial shortfall, the university announces that it has no choice but to sharply raise student tuition once again. “We remain committed to providing an affordable education for all,” says the university president, in somber tones. “But we will not degrade the high academic standards that make this institution great. We continue to provide an excellent value to our students, and we call on all members of the university community to come together in this difficult time of shared sacrifice.” Students complain, while some of the more outspoken members of the faculty wonder aloud why “high academic standards” never seem to involve “paying professors more money.” They are ignored. I think this standard line of rhetoric is growing less persuasive by the year. And it’s really hard to pull off in light of the new NCAA report detailing the recent orgy of spending on college sports. A few years ago, the NCAA put some numbers on a fact that had long been suspected: The vast majority of big-time college sports programs lose large amounts of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. A handful turn a profit, but most run big deficits that have to be made up with funds from student tuition, state appropriations, layoffs, salary freezes and elsewhere. Faced with this harsh reality and an uncertain economic future, the nation’s most prominent Division I institutions naturally decided to further ratchet up sports spending by nearly 11 percent per year, from an average of $31-million in 2004 to over $42-million in 2007. Of course these types of studies are always shrouded in anonymity, so there’s no way to pick them up and compare your university’s annual sports deficit / major spending increase and compare it to new student charges and departmental budget cuts elsewhere. But given the scarce number of universities that turn a profit, the odds are high that if your institution has aspirations of playing football in January, it’s somewhere on the list.