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Article from Hamptons Roads

Thoughts from ODU fans. How likely is this?

(01-14-2015 10:21 PM)CrushMI Wrote: [ -> ]Article from Hamptons Roads

Thoughts from ODU fans. How likely is this?

Not likely at all.

Ain't happening.

IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote: [ -> ]IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

Virginia and Tennessee are the only states the require colleges to disclose how they use activity fees. Therefore, ODU and MT can't be creative with how they report their numbers. These are the real figures. No other state, let alone another CUSA state, requires schools to do this. So, if we did impose a 50% limit, apart from ODU and MT, how would we even know who was meeting this standard?

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote: [ -> ]IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

The Bill proposes to cap it at 20%. What really galls me is that like many states the Commonwealth of VA. has been steadily defunding higher education for years, thereby shifting financial burdens on to students in the form of increased fees. In the case of ODU increases in student fees have been driven more by state defunding than by athletics. This Bill's sponsor, Delegate Cox (a JMU grad) is posturing.

The cost of attending ODU is very attractive compared to other state schools, even with the high student fees. Much cheaper than UVA/VPI/JMU/VCU/GMU/WM. THis looks to be much ado about nothing.

Article behind a pay wall.Could someone paraphrase or give more detail.Is this a bill or an idea?

bill entered Tuesday by Delagate Kirk Cox, a JMU grad. Interestingly, this bill would ultimately hurt JMU as much or more than any other school due to JMU's high student fee load...over $1100.

(01-14-2015 11:14 PM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote: [ -> ]Article behind a pay wall.Could someone paraphrase or give more detail.Is this a bill or an idea?

Here is a link to the Bill.
http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604....ful+HB1897

I live in Richmond and this bill or idea has "legs". The Richmond Times-Dispatch has printed articles over the years of the high cost of student fees being used to support sports at the JMU and W&M and the other schools. This bill will appeal to the parents paying the tuition of the children, who in most cases don't care about the football teams at the schools. I am afraid a lot of the legislators will find the bill attractive and politically good for them.

(01-14-2015 11:16 PM)ODUsmitty Wrote: [ -> ]bill entered Tuesday by Delagate Kirk Cox, a JMU grad. Interestingly, this bill would ultimately hurt JMU as much or more than any other school due to JMU's high student fee load...over $1100.

Incorrect. The Bill would not hurt JMU at all. If you read the actual bill closely, the 20% applies only to D-1 FBS. For FCS (JMU) the bill states 70%.....in other words, the JMU guy looks a little upset that his JMU Dukes wasnt invited to the CUSA party so as a result they are gonna stick it to you this way.

Very interesting. Tough situation. Cost of higher education is a very hot issue right now. Many say student loan debt is the next bubble to burst in the financial market. Looking at the situation purely for higher education only and not athletics, this makes sense. Higher Ed costs are increasing and athletics is not helping. But, obviously, as fans of athletics, this would suck. I doubt it passes.

(01-14-2015 10:35 PM)FriscoDawg Wrote: [ -> ]IMO no more than 50% of a university's athletic revenues should come from student fees or non-self generated sources. That is the standard that every C-USA member should be working to reach or to maintain if already there.

It's convenient you picked a round number that's closest to what La Tech is doing. This should be an institutional decision not a conference decision.

As this new world order of athletics reigns upon us I will be very interested in how your school is able to remain competitive across the board.

Your budget is half of ODU's and 25% less than the mid tier of the conference. I have talked about this before (and studied it extensively) on how budgets are directly correlated to long-term sustained competitiveness. So, far Tech has hung in there pretty admirably if look over a very small sample of time, but as we go forward I see Tech as a school that is going to be challenged to maintain a competitive balance with this league.

This league always has been one where the schools grow their budgets over time and almost all the schools who have come in recently fit this profile. If Tech continues to try to do this on the cheap I think you're going to find it becoming increasingly difficult to be competitive consistently unless you pour of preponderance of your budget into one sport like Marshall does and only care about that one sport.

ThreeifbyLightning, LaTech may not be as efficient as they look. With no accounting standards and rules for reporting costs for athletics, they may not be reporting all their costs under that number. I am not saying that is the case, but it is nearly impossible to compare program budgets because each program accounts a bit differently.

(01-14-2015 10:21 PM)CrushMI Wrote: [ -> ]Article from Hamptons Roads

Thoughts from ODU fans. How likely is this?

Pretty ridiculous. Lets say (making this up) that $20M comes from athletic fees. And lets say that (also made up) your schools operating budget is $500M. So we are talking about 4% of the budget? But ok, lets say that you're real concern is for the student paying the fees. What is hurting students more, the 1% - 4% of their cost of attendance that goes to the athletic fees or the tuition portion which continues to rise?

What doesn't make sense to me is this bill could force us to lower our overall athletic budget but can't really make us lower each student's fees. How is that making it any more affordable for students? A cap on the actual dollar amount student's pay for athletics would be better imo.

(01-15-2015 12:00 PM)galojah Wrote: [ -> ]ThreeifbyLightning, LaTech may not be as efficient as they look. With no accounting standards and rules for reporting costs for athletics, they may not be reporting all their costs under that number. I am not saying that is the case, but it is nearly impossible to compare program budgets because each program accounts a bit differently.

That's a good point. And not only that the critical element that people always seem to want to ignore in this situation (and take UAB as the poster child) is the indirect financial benefits that come from having athletics at the highest level across the board. Whether it's the three hour infomercials you get by being on national TV to the impact from recruitment of high caliber students (particularly out of state who pay more). And those are just a couple of examples. Politicians or other athletic detractors seem to always gloss over these facts or are ignorant to them.

In the Commonwealth of VA, it alrady against the law to use tax dollars to build athletic facilities; so Virginia has a history "against" college athletic spending. I think you will see some sort of action to lower the amount of student fees going to athletics at some point in the near future. JMHO.

You can debate the value of athletics, but the parents of students are looking for lower tuition costs. In Virginia, you can go the UVA or VA Tech if you want college athletics. Those schools don't take much money, if any, from tuition to pay for their programs.

(01-15-2015 12:27 PM)Flat Tire 2 Wrote: [ -> ]In Virginia, you can go the UVA or VA Tech if you want college athletics. Those schools don't take much money, if any, from tuition to pay for their programs.

I'm assuming by your comment that those schools have 100% acceptance rates.

It should not matter what level of football you are playing if you are looking out for the students the cap on what percentage of student fees that can be used toward athletics should be the same. For that reason this does come off as sour grapes from the JMU grad to me.