(07-13-2017 07:03 PM)nzmorange Wrote:  

(07-13-2017 06:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-13-2017 04:47 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Well, that link was dated 2003 ...

Anyway ... what's so wrong with "non-core mission" features of a school? You seem to express an almost religious belief against them ... but I don't think I've seen an explanation on your part of why they are so bad.

Not sure why you think I have a 'religious belief' against them? As my signature shows, I've supported USF football for 20 years.

It's just that I think that's how intercollegiate athletics should be supported - voluntarily, the way alumni support them. Students shouldn't be compelled to. That's my only complaint.

I think that athletics enhance a school in a number of ways, and as such, have a positive effect on a degree's value. As such, it makes sense for the academic side of a school to support the athletic side *to some extent.* and, since money is fungible, that's the economic equivalent of an explicit student subsidy (vs. higher tuition and then athletics coming out of a general budget).

However, I think that some schools subsidize way more than they should.

That right there.
Athletics in college were not started to generate revenue. It was part of a reaction to industrialization and urbanization to advocate for athletics for health and to instill values of sportsmanship and teamwork.

Making money was a happy accident and with that costs rose leading us to people heavily subsidizing to keep up

(07-13-2017 06:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  It's just that I think that's how intercollegiate athletics should be supported - voluntarily, the way alumni support them. Students shouldn't be compelled to. That's my only complaint.

Why? Because athletics is a non-core mission of the school, as you've spent the last three pages of the thread stating. Your argument has remained very consistent.

But what you haven't done, which I asked you to do last post, is explain why you believe that a non-core mission of a school should only be electively funded by students. Why?

As an example: upgrading a campus-wide wifi network for higher speed doesn't serve the core mission of the school, since downloading textbooks, assignments, checking school email, etc. doesn't really require a high speed connection. But students demand it, so universities spend eight and probably nine figures in some cases to install and maintain IT infrastructure. What say you? Voluntary fees only, for that?

(07-13-2017 11:35 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  Making money was a happy accident and with that costs rose leading us to people heavily subsidizing to keep up

MAC, Sun Belt, even CUSA schools, could all band together and simply decree to themselves that they will fund their football teams at FCS levels, with the exception of providing 85 full scholarships instead of 63 (which is peanuts, relatively).

Could do that, and remain in FBS per the rules.

Is that what you desire?

(07-14-2017 09:18 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(07-13-2017 06:10 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  It's just that I think that's how intercollegiate athletics should be supported - voluntarily, the way alumni support them. Students shouldn't be compelled to. That's my only complaint.

Why? Because athletics is a non-core mission of the school, as you've spent the last three pages of the thread stating. Your argument has remained very consistent.

But what you haven't done, which I asked you to do last post, is explain why you believe that a non-core mission of a school should only be electively funded by students. Why?

As an example: upgrading a campus-wide wifi network for higher speed doesn't serve the core mission of the school, since downloading textbooks, assignments, checking school email, etc. doesn't really require a high speed connection. But students demand it, so universities spend eight and probably nine figures in some cases to install and maintain IT infrastructure. What say you? Voluntary fees only, for that?

Last post, you posited that i had a 'near-religious' objection or somesuch to intercollegiate athletics, when truth is, i have no objection to them at all unless they are funded by mandatory student fees.

Now, you seem to think i have an extremely narrow definition of what qualifies as 'mission core' activities. But I don't. It's actually quite expansive, and easily encompasses something like campus-wide wi-fi, since that sure facilitates learning processes. E.g., I do a lot of things online in my classes, and it's a big benefit to students to be able to access the internet to interface without having to go to a particular lab or location or be tethered to a wire.

We can keep naming other support-type activities if you like, a laundry list of "well what about this, what about that", but the responses will be the same.

The thing is, and IMO this really shows how egregious forced-fees on students really is, even with my expansive definition, you can't shoe-horn "big time" intercollegiate athletics into the expansive equation. It's so far removed from the mission, you can't miracle it in.

(07-13-2017 05:32 PM)arkstfan Wrote:  No one is underwriting bonds backed by voluntary fees.

That ends this being anything other than a philosophical chat.

Everything on this forum is nothing more than a 'philosophical chat'. The meter says I've made about 23,000 posts. If we eliminated all of them that had no impact on the real world, basically 100% of them would be deleted. Same is true for you.

I'm well aware that despite my protestations, hundreds of universities, desperately chasing the "big time dream", will keep force-milking their students with big mandatory athletic fees to fund that dream.

(07-14-2017 11:06 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  Last post, you posited that i had a 'near-religious' objection or somesuch to intercollegiate athletics, when truth is, i have no objection to them at all unless they are funded by mandatory student fees.

Now, you seem to think i have an extremely narrow definition of what qualifies as 'mission core' activities. But I don't. It's actually quite expansive, and easily encompasses something like campus-wide wi-fi, since that sure facilitates learning processes. E.g., I do a lot of things online in my classes, and it's a big benefit to students to be able to access the internet to interface without having to go to a particular lab or location or be tethered to a wire.

We can keep naming other support-type activities if you like, a laundry list of "well what about this, what about that", but the responses will be the same.

The thing is, and IMO this really shows how egregious forced-fees on students really is, even with my expansive definition, you can't shoe-horn "big time" intercollegiate athletics into the expansive equation. It's so far removed from the mission, you can't miracle it in.

The religious comment had only to do with how fervently you argue the position. No offense was meant, personally.

I will accept that athletics falls outside whatever boundary you want for core-mission vs. non core-mission, but I want you to then explain why you want it to be that schools can only pay for any non core-mission program/feature/amenity using money generated from an elective fee. Why does that make sense?