[lbo-talk] Disappoint With #125

[Carrol Cox]

College presidents either believe or use the claim that success in
athletics (a brings in alumni cash and (b) makes the school well known
and therefore attracts superior faculty. But only a very very few if any
schools break even. (California may be different, I don't know.) Fritz
Crisler always boasted that the Michigan program made money and
subsidized thngs like swimming pools for womens's physed. But that was
bullshit: it made money only because of the student athletic fee, tution
by any other name. And Michigan was a rare exception in making money.
Most schools (and all small schools) lost money big time.

Carrol

Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> 
> No, i think it's exactly right. You don't have to have heard of them for
> them to cost money. I know Doug is focusing on the (mostly big) publics, but
> honestly I think the problem is the same at small privates. At a place where
> I taught before, a big selling point is the playing of Div III athletics.
> Indeed, a point of pride is the high percentage of students who are on an
> NCAA sports team (not just club or intramural athletics).
> 
> The other thing is administrative stuff. Chuck says the university has two
> functions: teaching and research. I say, he's missing the most important
> function: providing an "experience" for the student. And I am betting that a
> lot of salary and program money goes toward this aspect of college. But I
> admit I have not broken down numbers and can't prove it. But even if
> research explained costs going up at big research-oriented publics (which
> would account for tuition at, say, a bowling green state, I'll bet), it
> wouldn't account for the rising tuition at the large bulk of private
> colleges in the country, which are also terribly expensive, but do not have
> health technicians commanding six-figure salaries as faculty, and do not
> have any research program worth noting. When you throw in athletics,
> especially at the smaller colleges (and iirc football especially is quite
> expensive, but again, maybe I'm just wrong about that), it adds up to
> research not really being the culprit.
> 
> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 12:14 PM, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net>wrote:
> 
> > At 10:05 AM 3/10/2010, Carrol Cox wrote:
> >
> >
> >  But any discussion of university/college finances should take into
> >> account the enormous cost of athletic programs
> >>
> >
> >
> > This seems a little out of leftfield, as it were.
> >
> > What you're saying wouldn't apply to San Francisco State or most every
> > other member of the state university system in California.  And I don't
> > think it would apply to most UC schools either.  Who's ever heard of the UC
> > Irvine Anteaters?
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