(03-09-2020 01:29 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  Long story short: most university presidents are only going to be at their particular jobs for a few years before moving somewhere else, so he/she doesn't want that reputation of being the person that killed Division I sports at a school. That's a scarlet letter that doesn't ever leave a resume. In contrast, it's FAR easier for those university presidents to simply tack on an additional athletic fee to student bills. There's no contest there. It looks a heck of a lot better on a resume for better jobs when university presidents figure out ways to *save* athletic departments (even if it's superficial via more student fees) as opposed to killing them.

I don't think we disagree here. I've been saying for years that Admins tack on student fees and keep alive obviously white-elephant athletic programs for their own career prospects. True, in the business world, there are executives who can gain a reputation as "retrenchment" or "turnaround" experts, guys you bring in when red ink is flowing and you need budgets slashed and departments chopped and mass layoffs to save the company, and these guys can make good money doing that. But that is almost never the case in the public sector, where the vast majority of student-soaking universities are located, because they don't face the same kind of market discipline. In that domain, a good 'executive' grows things.

But I also think the "human" element goes beyond that to admin ego as well. A bureaucrat almost never likes to see programs under his/her auspices shrink or be dismantled, they always want new ones created or existing ones expanded, because the larger the budget and programs and resources you preside over, the more power and prestige you have in that world.