You're probably right (no, you're definitely right) that the student vote didn't have final sway over the football decision. And my memory could be bad. But I believe the student vote was politicized in this way, as though it was necessary, and as though football was necessary to take the university amd student experience back to the next level. So let's not completely crap on their $250/yr contribution, the $1000 I've paid to date.

(03-18-2016 07:03 PM)shampoo Wrote:  You're probably right (no, you're definitely right) that the student vote didn't have final sway over the football decision. And my memory could be bad. But I believe the student vote was politicized in this way, as though it was necessary, and as though football was necessary to take the university amd student experience back to the next level. So let's not completely crap on their $250/yr contribution, the $1000 I've paid to date.

You are both right. Now football and marching band are some of the many opportunities offered by ETSU. Football is such a great thing for the entire region and students. Cannot wait to see Bucs take the field thus Fall!

(03-18-2016 07:03 PM)shampoo Wrote:  You're probably right (no, you're definitely right) that the student vote didn't have final sway over the football decision. And my memory could be bad. But I believe the student vote was politicized in this way, as though it was necessary, and as though football was necessary to take the university amd student experience back to the next level. So let's not completely crap on their $250/yr contribution, the $1000 I've paid to date.

I bet you're the type to complain about taxes and the gubbament's control. And yet you fail to see the parallel in having $1000 added on to your student debt for a non-essential program. The president wanted football back. That $1000 with 6.5% interest over 30 years actually costs me $7689 assuming the current compounding and deferred payments/paying off the rest of the essential debt first. Then we can talk about inflation (maybe ETSU should under-inflate their football to compensate for the current state of the program, but "nobody cares"). If your point is that no one cares about that $1000 base contribution to the football program, thank you for proving my point about the common perception of students' input and value to the university, as well as there being no clear need to incentivize, excuse me I mean provide a return on investment, to their mandatory but non-essential investment. I do enjoy subsidizing someone else's education and preferred treatment by he university as a scholarship athlete.

(03-18-2016 09:00 PM)shampoo Wrote:  I bet you're the type to complain about taxes and the gubbament's control. And yet you fail to see the parallel in having $1000 added on to your student debt for a non-essential program. The president wanted football back. That $1000 with 6.5% interest over 30 years actually costs me $6,614 assuming annual compounding and deferred payments/paying off the rest of the essential debt first. Then we can talk about inflation (maybe ETSU should under-inflate their football to compensate for the current state of the program, but "nobody cares"). If your point is that no one cares about that $1000 base contribution to the football program, thank you for proving my point about the common perception of students' input and value to the university, as well as there being no clear need to incentivize, excuse me I mean provide a return on investment, to their mandatory but non-essential investment. I do enjoy subsidizing someone else's education and preferred treatment by he university as a scholarship athlete.

But you chose the university where you paid those debts, you could have just have easily transferred if you wanted to pay less.

Giving the students the worst seats is short sighted and disrespectful to those who are building the foundation for this program. No, the fee wasn't required to bring football back. We could have brought football back on a shoestring budget instead. That would have been stupid. To be successful and to get this stadium built, they needed the fee. And they should reward the 10% of students who bother to show up for a game with a sideline seat. Further, we need to make sure that they have a blast at those games so that they are the next generation of fans. We lost a generation of fans, they have to work extra hard to attract this generation. Endzone seats, assuming that they have to exist in the first place, should go to those who buy the lowest priced single game tickets.

(03-18-2016 09:13 PM)etsuandpurdue3 Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 09:00 PM)shampoo Wrote:  I bet you're the type to complain about taxes and the gubbament's control. And yet you fail to see the parallel in having $1000 added on to your student debt for a non-essential program. The president wanted football back. That $1000 with 6.5% interest over 30 years actually costs me $6,614 assuming annual compounding and deferred payments/paying off the rest of the essential debt first. Then we can talk about inflation (maybe ETSU should under-inflate their football to compensate for the current state of the program, but "nobody cares"). If your point is that no one cares about that $1000 base contribution to the football program, thank you for proving my point about the common perception of students' input and value to the university, as well as there being no clear need to incentivize, excuse me I mean provide a return on investment, to their mandatory but non-essential investment. I do enjoy subsidizing someone else's education and preferred treatment by he university as a scholarship athlete.

But you chose the university where you paid those debts, you could have just have easily transferred if you wanted to pay less.

First, I need to correct an error I made as I was playing around with interest and some other assumptions on my financial calculator. The actual cost of $1000 student debt at the actual 6.8% for someone like myself, using the Fed's simple interest formula, is $7689 in future value if it accrues interest for 30 years without payment. Plus unknown effect of inflation. The way things are, it's a drawn out assumption, but a common concern students have about finding good pay to even afford their debt down the road.

Second, I could just as easily have transferred? Are you kidding me? And you could just as easily move out of country, incorporate in Delaware, or put your money in a tax haven overseas if you don't like paying taxes. All assuming you have good money to begin. Don't give me that crap. It's not as insulting to someone that has a choice of where to go, but this is a regional university. Many students have no choice other than community college, where you won't get a 4-yr degree. This $250 annual fee is relatively small, but let's not keep piling cost on top of yearly growing educational costs, rising cost of debt, inflation, poor job prospects, and then insult students by sticking them in an endzone, making them pay more if they want a better seat elsewhere (that's called double-dipping), complain they don't show up and whine that we want a loud student section, then tell them they can easily transfer or go somewhere else if cost of attendance is a concern. At least Torbush won't have to worry about retirement with his $200K+ salary. Assuming he can get this team winning soon, which I damn well want to see because I love my school. My school taught me in undergrad how to be critical and now in business school how to see the value of a dollar. And not to take crap lying down if it makes old rich people happy.

That's why I support Haslam's Tennessee Promise bill. Cost of 4 year colleges are completely out of proportion, and we are turning the schools into resorts and athletics complexes instead of prioritizing education. Man, I am on a roll tonight, politics and all. Nobody cares.

I'm all for students getting good seats. I just hope they fill them.

My complaint about my $100 seats is I'll go from the 35 yard line to the 20 or worse. Sure, it's $100, but I can't pay for the higher seats because UT gets $1,300 from me each season. I'm already strapped.

I look forward to seeing the high priced sections less than half empty as the moneybag people stay away.

With your logic, I (as a non-traditional student), give my $250 a year in activity fees, PLUS the somewhere around 2-3 grand I give toward ETSU, both regular donations and athletic ones. My donations will likely be going up over the next couple of years for various reasons. I'll estimate that it will be nearly $4000 total and I'm not even a top level supporter. (Oh, let's also add in two kids also taking classes at ETSU and paying their fees to the program.) So if the students get sideline seats for that, I want my skybox.

Kid, I appreciate you as a student, but realize that there are donors that are giving a LOT more than the students and deserve plenty of seats for that. If that relegates the students to the end zones or less than desirable seats, then that's what happens. Without the mid-level and highend season ticket holders and their donations, ETSU would be lucky to have a fraction of the facilities, teams and staff they do. Without donors like me, there'd be fewer academic scholarships as well.

Larger universities have larger activity fees, PLUS the students pay for tickets in the cheap seats. Even happens at schools with less than terrific teams. It's part of it. Your activity fee pays for athletics, sure, but this in turn gets people like me interested in the school and interested in supporting the school financially. Heck, I'm not even a native of this area or an alumni of ETSU. We moved here and I enjoyed the school so much that I wanted to be a supporter.

(03-18-2016 09:00 PM)shampoo Wrote:  I bet you're the type to complain about taxes and the gubbament's control. And yet you fail to see the parallel in having $1000 added on to your student debt for a non-essential program. The president wanted football back. That $1000 with 6.5% interest over 30 years actually costs me $7027 assuming the current compounding and deferred payments/paying off the rest of the essential debt first. Then we can talk about inflation (maybe ETSU should under-inflate their football to compensate for the current state of the program, but "nobody cares"). If your point is that no one cares about that $1000 base contribution to the football program, thank you for proving my point about the common perception of students' input and value to the university, as well as there being no clear need to incentivize, excuse me I mean provide a return on investment, to their mandatory but non-essential investment. I do enjoy subsidizing someone else's education and preferred treatment by he university as a scholarship athlete.

You voluntarily chose to go to ETSU, you had the option to give $0 to the university if you wanted by attending another university. If you didn't like why they were doing you should have left. Thats on you.

If you are paying off student loans in 30 years you should have not went to college. Sorry to be a jerk but if your degree does not help provide you with the funds to get them paid of in 5-10 years then you made a mistake. The problem with this generation of students is that politicians and others have made them think that everyone needs a degree to succeed in their careers. That is just not the case.

Your question about valuing the students inputs; I do not value their input at all. 18-22 year olds have a very narrow view of the world and don't have the experiences to make informed decisions that affect communities and generations in the future.

You should also enjoy helping those scholarship athletes. They provide more to the university then you will.

(03-18-2016 09:52 PM)queenladybug817 Wrote:  With your logic, I (as a non-traditional student), give my $250 a year in activity fees, PLUS the somewhere around 2-3 grand I give toward ETSU, both regular donations and athletic ones. My donations will likely be going up over the next couple of years for various reasons. I'll estimate that it will be nearly $4000 total and I'm not even a top level supporter. (Oh, let's also add in two kids also taking classes at ETSU and paying their fees to the program.) So if the students get sideline seats for that, I want my skybox.

Kid, I appreciate you as a student, but realize that there are donors that are giving a LOT more than the students and deserve plenty of seats for that. If that relegates the students to the end zones or less than desirable seats, then that's what happens. Without the mid-level and highend season ticket holders and their donations, ETSU would be lucky to have a fraction of the facilities, teams and staff they do. Without donors like me, there'd be fewer academic scholarships as well.

Larger universities have larger activity fees, PLUS the students pay for tickets in the cheap seats. Even happens at schools with less than terrific teams. It's part of it. Your activity fee pays for athletics, sure, but this in turn gets people like me interested in the school and interested in supporting the school financially. Heck, I'm not even a native of this area or an alumni of ETSU. We moved here and I enjoyed the school so much that I wanted to be a supporter.

Good post. Dropping knowledge here.

(03-18-2016 09:52 PM)queenladybug817 Wrote:  With your logic, I (as a non-traditional student), give my $250 a year in activity fees, PLUS the somewhere around 2-3 grand I give toward ETSU, both regular donations and athletic ones. My donations will likely be going up over the next couple of years for various reasons. I'll estimate that it will be nearly $4000 total and I'm not even a top level supporter. (Oh, let's also add in two kids also taking classes at ETSU and paying their fees to the program.) So if the students get sideline seats for that, I want my skybox.

Kid, I appreciate you as a student, but realize that there are donors that are giving a LOT more than the students and deserve plenty of seats for that. If that relegates the students to the end zones or less than desirable seats, then that's what happens. Without the mid-level and highend season ticket holders and their donations, ETSU would be lucky to have a fraction of the facilities, teams and staff they do. Without donors like me, there'd be fewer academic scholarships as well.

Larger universities have larger activity fees, PLUS the students pay for tickets in the cheap seats. Even happens at schools with less than terrific teams. It's part of it. Your activity fee pays for athletics, sure, but this in turn gets people like me interested in the school and interested in supporting the school financially. Heck, I'm not even a native of this area or an alumni of ETSU. We moved here and I enjoyed the school so much that I wanted to be a supporter.

Don't call me kid or I might call you old lady. I own a house and have my own child, and I'm working on a business plan for a $1.3 million investment. I actually like you and the spirit you show. This isn't about entitlement, it's about a distorted university message that overstated a student priority, and now the possibility of another regrettable failure to involve students or give them the value they deserve at an educational institution. Rather than demonstrating liberal concerns, I am expressing strong conservative impulses. I'm sorry you are paying X grand and don't get a skybox. You deserve to see ETSU win some games very soon....The heart of the university and primary stakeholder is the student, no matter who pays the bills. Let us not take an expensive or insulting roundabout in serving our primary stakeholders, deferring value for years on end and assuming they will want to donate in turn.

Once the university shows me how non-student athletes are receiving scholarship support because of increased donor activity--directly traceable to the return of football--then I won't have anything to say about non-athletes subsidizing their peers' education and inflated coaches' salaries (mind you that coaches' salaries can be 10 x as much for strong, winning programs). While getting my MBA, to be awarded May, I also took a number of sports management electives and others satisfying business requirements to better understand some things. Not claiming to know more or better understand things than you. Just arguing my position. I am defending other students, not myself. I'm especially sick of the culture this board has of complaining about students while failing to appreciate the current state of athletics and resorting to weak analogies to major programs.

I do appreciate everyone's respectful counterpoints and reasoning from different perspectives. The university is a complex and dynamic organization. I reacted to that bull**** Spongebob meme, but I do enjoy how this dialogue is unfolding. Maybe people at the university will see this, who knows.

(03-18-2016 09:58 PM)shampoo Wrote:  Don't call me kid or I might call you old lady. I own a house and have my own child, and I'm working on a business plan for a $1.3 million investment. I actually like you and the spirit you show. This isn't about entitlement, it's about a distorted university message that overstated a student priority, and now the possibility of another regrettable failure to involve students or give them the value they deserve at an educational institution. Rather than demonstrating liberal concerns, I am expressing strong conservative impulses. I'm sorry you are paying X grand and don't get a skybox. You deserve to see ETSU win some games very soon. Once the university shows me how non-student athletes are receiving scholarship support because of increased donor activity--directly traceable to the return of football--then I won't have anything to say about non-athletes subsidizing their peers' education and inflated coaches' salaries (mind you that coaches' salaries can be 10 x as much for strong, winning programs). While getting my MBA, to be awarded May, I also took sports management electives to better understand se things. Not claiming to know more or better understand things than you. Just arguing my position. I am defending other students, not myself. I'm especially sick of the culture this board has of complaining about students while failing to appreciate the current state of athletics and resorting to weak analogies to major programs.

I do appreciate everyone's respectful counterpoints and reasoning from different perspectives. The university is a complex and dynamic organization. I reacted to that bull**** Spongebob meme, but I do enjoy how this dialogue is unfolding. Maybe people at the university will see this, who knows.

You are working on a "1.3 million dollar investment" but plan on paying your student loans off in 30 years?!? Yikes...

See, I'm seeing it from the other direction. I don't WANT a skybox unless I'm paying in enough to support it. There are plenty of donors shelling out a lot more than me. They get the skyboxes, I get the club level and so on, and so on. Students should have a section, somewhere between bronze and silver, with a few seats, then the rest can sit in the endzone. Get there early, show support and get the better student seats. But don't take away the Silver and Gold level donor seats to make room for it. Doing that will shoot the program in the foot as much as "failing to involve students or giving them the value they deserve." I'm being bribed to donate more by letting me have the good seats for my money. Students, like it or not, are already giving the money. The administration wants me to give more, and I probably will. I'm a sucker for perks and all.

Most students don't realize at Freedom Hall that the section next to the band, not on the ends, is all student too. Pretty decent seats and it rarely fills up, even when we have a boatload of students. They gravitate toward the end seats. Maybe more of them understand the hierarchy and have less issue with it than you? Maybe they see that's what almost all other schools do and emulate it?

I don't know if they would release the info, but I bet ETSU has some way of at least estimating how many of their donors give money to other aspects of ETSU and if the number of donors and total of donations has increased since football was slated to return. The advertising money alone at games has increased with football. There's also been a pretty large uptick in sponsorship of timeout games, banners and other ads at basketball games the past few years. I won't say the school is just raking in the cash from that, but it does help.

BTW, I don't take offense at you saying I'm an old lady. I'm almost 40, so not old, but I do have kids/stepkids, not much younger than you. I call them kids too, even though they are adults. It's a term of endearment for the most part.

(03-18-2016 10:12 PM)brock20 Wrote:  

(03-18-2016 09:58 PM)shampoo Wrote:  Don't call me kid or I might call you old lady. I own a house and have my own child, and I'm working on a business plan for a $1.3 million investment. I actually like you and the spirit you show. This isn't about entitlement, it's about a distorted university message that overstated a student priority, and now the possibility of another regrettable failure to involve students or give them the value they deserve at an educational institution. Rather than demonstrating liberal concerns, I am expressing strong conservative impulses. I'm sorry you are paying X grand and don't get a skybox. You deserve to see ETSU win some games very soon. Once the university shows me how non-student athletes are receiving scholarship support because of increased donor activity--directly traceable to the return of football--then I won't have anything to say about non-athletes subsidizing their peers' education and inflated coaches' salaries (mind you that coaches' salaries can be 10 x as much for strong, winning programs). While getting my MBA, to be awarded May, I also took sports management electives to better understand se things. Not claiming to know more or better understand things than you. Just arguing my position. I am defending other students, not myself. I'm especially sick of the culture this board has of complaining about students while failing to appreciate the current state of athletics and resorting to weak analogies to major programs.

I do appreciate everyone's respectful counterpoints and reasoning from different perspectives. The university is a complex and dynamic organization. I reacted to that bull**** Spongebob meme, but I do enjoy how this dialogue is unfolding. Maybe people at the university will see this, who knows.

You are working on a "1.3 million dollar investment" but plan on paying your student loans off in 30 years?!? Yikes...

Shut up. They are assumptions to demonstrate that $1000 does not mean $1000 to a student, per se. When you are ready to reapond woth your own reasoning and stop counting on others to do it, we can have a debate. Ad hominem fallacy to both of us.

(Aw hell, I like your style.)

I responded on page 3.

(03-18-2016 10:13 PM)queenladybug817 Wrote:  See, I'm seeing it from the other direction. I don't WANT a skybox unless I'm paying in enough to support it. There are plenty of donors shelling out a lot more than me. They get the skyboxes, I get the club level and so on, and so on. Students should have a section, somewhere between bronze and silver, with a few seats, then the rest can sit in the endzone. Get there early, show support and get the better student seats. But don't take away the Silver and Gold level donor seats to make room for it. Doing that will shoot the program in the foot as much as "failing to involve students or giving them the value they deserve." I'm being bribed to donate more by letting me have the good seats for my money. Students, like it or not, are already giving the money. The administration wants me to give more, and I probably will. I'm a sucker for perks and all.

Most students don't realize at Freedom Hall that the section next to the band, not on the ends, is all student too. Pretty decent seats and it rarely fills up, even when we have a boatload of students. They gravitate toward the end seats. Maybe more of them understand the hierarchy and have less issue with it than you? Maybe they see that's what almost all other schools do and emulate it?

I have no issue with Freedom Hall. I sit on the corner section that is available to students and love it. I think the university is doing great things with the basketball program, and it's a much less expensive program than football, though without as high of a potential revenue pool. I see eye to eye with you on the football stadium seating thought--can't give away seats beyond the $250 value, but sticking all students in the endzone is discouraging and simply not respectful if their $250 fee is higher than the general admission that can sit sidelines. Also, I bet you're a MILF. There's my concession. I love the spirit you have for ETSU unaided, unabided by any alumna ties.

(03-18-2016 10:31 PM)brock20 Wrote:  I responded on page 3.

Then I ignored you on page 3. Now we are even. In addition to the resident MILF, I also like you, brock20 and would probably drink many beers and shout profanities at Chattanooga players with you, even in endzone seats.

(03-18-2016 10:37 PM)shampoo Wrote:  Then I ignored you on page 3. Now we are even. In addition to the resident MILF, I also like you, brock20 and would probably drink many beers and shout profanities at Chattanooga players with you, even in endzone seats.