http://www.newsrecord.org/news/soaring-s...06336.html

Cincinnati's student newspaper provided some excellent research into the AAC's athletic subsidies from the student body at each school. Between 2014 and 2017, Cincinnati's athletic department’s deficit totaled almost $102 million — a 33 percent increase over the prior four years.

As high as each student's athletic subsidy was at Cincinnati ($1,238), UConn's was the highest ($1,784). UCF and USF had some of the lowest in the AAC (only a little bit over $100). For UC, it is estimated that athletic fees are rising 13 percent faster than the growth of tuition.

For the OBE programs in UC and UConn, it is pivotal, absolutely pivotal, that the next AAC contract is much more lucrative than the paltry $1.7 million it currently gets from ESPN - especially with the war chest drying up from the Big East severance ending. The rate of these school's athletic subsidy spending in order to play catch up is not only not sustainable, but it is arguably irresponsible to continue spending this amount on athletics while footing the bill to the students. It is very wrong to force even more debt to college students for the potential of "big time" college athletics.

It would be interesting to see if students had the option of paying for these athletic fees, what the percentage would be if they opted into paying them.

Those numbers would be a huge concern for UConn. Cincy, and USF as those three are already receiving a annual conference payout that about 6-7 million higher than the rest of the conference due to realignment fund payouts (exit fees and left behind NCAA credits from departing members). I believe these extra payments will exaust the fund within a year or two. So, all three will take a 6-7 million budget hit if the new AAC media contract does not increase about 6-7 millionn per team.

(04-08-2018 11:15 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  http://www.newsrecord.org/news/soaring-s...06336.html

Cincinnati's student newspaper provided some excellent research into the AAC's athletic subsidies from the student body at each school. Between 2014 and 2017, Cincinnati's athletic department’s deficit totaled almost $102 million — a 33 percent increase over the prior four years.

As high as each student's athletic subsidy was at Cincinnati ($1,238), UConn's was the highest ($1,784). UCF and USF had some of the lowest in the AAC (only a little bit over $100). For UC, it is estimated that athletic fees are rising 13 percent faster than the growth of tuition.

For the OBE programs in UC and UConn, it is pivotal, absolutely pivotal, that the next AAC contract is much more lucrative than the paltry $1.7 million it currently gets from ESPN - especially with the war chest drying up from the Big East severance ending. The rate of these school's athletic subsidy spending in order to play catch up is not only not sustainable, but it is arguably irresponsible to continue spending this amount on athletics while footing the bill to the students. It is very wrong to force even more debt to college students for the potential of "big time" college athletics.

It would be interesting to see if students had the option of paying for these athletic fees, what the percentage would be if they opted into paying them.

No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

(04-08-2018 11:37 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

Yeah, who cares about schools spending money that isn't naturally being earned and then sticking the bill of expenses to the students?

There are thousands upon thousands of schools in the country to attend. Overwhelming majority aren’t stacking athletics fees in student fees. Students know the deal going in. If they don’t like a how a school is run, there are a million other options. Simple. Every school is different for a reason.

(04-08-2018 11:37 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:15 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  http://www.newsrecord.org/news/soaring-s...06336.html

Cincinnati's student newspaper provided some excellent research into the AAC's athletic subsidies from the student body at each school. Between 2014 and 2017, Cincinnati's athletic department’s deficit totaled almost $102 million — a 33 percent increase over the prior four years.

As high as each student's athletic subsidy was at Cincinnati ($1,238), UConn's was the highest ($1,784). UCF and USF had some of the lowest in the AAC (only a little bit over $100). For UC, it is estimated that athletic fees are rising 13 percent faster than the growth of tuition.

For the OBE programs in UC and UConn, it is pivotal, absolutely pivotal, that the next AAC contract is much more lucrative than the paltry $1.7 million it currently gets from ESPN - especially with the war chest drying up from the Big East severance ending. The rate of these school's athletic subsidy spending in order to play catch up is not only not sustainable, but it is arguably irresponsible to continue spending this amount on athletics while footing the bill to the students. It is very wrong to force even more debt to college students for the potential of "big time" college athletics.

It would be interesting to see if students had the option of paying for these athletic fees, what the percentage would be if they opted into paying them.

No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

That is a strange way to look at it, because the student should not have his or her valid educational program options held hostage to a dumb athletic fee.

(04-08-2018 02:52 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:37 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:15 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  http://www.newsrecord.org/news/soaring-s...06336.html

Cincinnati's student newspaper provided some excellent research into the AAC's athletic subsidies from the student body at each school. Between 2014 and 2017, Cincinnati's athletic department’s deficit totaled almost $102 million — a 33 percent increase over the prior four years.

As high as each student's athletic subsidy was at Cincinnati ($1,238), UConn's was the highest ($1,784). UCF and USF had some of the lowest in the AAC (only a little bit over $100). For UC, it is estimated that athletic fees are rising 13 percent faster than the growth of tuition.

For the OBE programs in UC and UConn, it is pivotal, absolutely pivotal, that the next AAC contract is much more lucrative than the paltry $1.7 million it currently gets from ESPN - especially with the war chest drying up from the Big East severance ending. The rate of these school's athletic subsidy spending in order to play catch up is not only not sustainable, but it is arguably irresponsible to continue spending this amount on athletics while footing the bill to the students. It is very wrong to force even more debt to college students for the potential of "big time" college athletics.

It would be interesting to see if students had the option of paying for these athletic fees, what the percentage would be if they opted into paying them.

No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

That is a strange way to look at it, because the student should not have his or her valid educational program options held hostage to a dumb athletic fee.

There are very few if any services that are not held "hostage" to some fee or built-in cost that the buyer may or may not prefer be there. If you consider sales taxes, virtually every transaction by definition is subsizing other programs that the buyer may not ever use or even support.

College is not different from the primary public education systems across the nation. Millions of dollars are spent on athletics in every school district---even though most middle and high schools students will never play a single sport. Those that have interests in the sciences still subsidize band, cheerleading, wresting, choir, and theatre, ect. Nothing new here.

That said, my guess is there is a limit to how far this "student athletic fee" behavior can go in universities before it starts to affect enrollment. If it gets too out of control, eventually---the free market will give the administrators a real concrete financial reason to reign in athletic fees--declining enrollment.

(04-08-2018 02:52 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That is a strange way to look at it, because the student should not have his or her valid educational program options held hostage to a dumb athletic fee.

Well why should the tuition of an engineering student go towards supporting the gender studies department?

If the student felt that strongly about not supporting a specific program/arm of the university there are an absurd number of options. There are so many options it's probably physically impossible to apply to every school in the US on your own between the time that applications open and their deadline, let alone visit them. At an average cost of $37.88 per application at least it'd cost you $122,200.88 just to apply to the 3,226 4-year schools in America.

So maybe I'm "blaming the victim", but you should know what you're getting into. I will concede one could make an argument that an unexpected increase in fees while the student is still in school is unfair. But ultimately I'm not sure what you could do about that except lock your tuition as a freshman. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Our students get tickets to FB and basketball with those fees, plus a rec center that has been voted one of the best in the country. It’s not that bad of a deal. Obviously since we keep bringing in record new students every year for the past 8-10 years most students aren’t that upset about it.

(04-08-2018 03:00 PM)McKinney Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 02:52 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  That is a strange way to look at it, because the student should not have his or her valid educational program options held hostage to a dumb athletic fee.

Well why should the tuition of an engineering student go towards supporting the gender studies department?

If the student felt that strongly about not supporting a specific program/arm of the university there are an absurd number of options. There are so many options it's probably physically impossible to apply to every school in the US on your own between the time that applications open and their deadline, let alone visit them. At an average cost of $37.88 per application at least it'd cost you $122,200.88 just to apply to the 3,226 4-year schools in America.

So maybe I'm "blaming the victim", but you should know what you're getting into. I will concede one could make an argument that an unexpected increase in fees while the student is still in school is unfair. But ultimately I'm not sure what you could do about that except lock your tuition as a freshman. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Gender Studies and Engineering are both academic disciplines, football and soccer are not.

(04-08-2018 03:09 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Gender Studies and Engineering are both academic disciplines, football and soccer are not.

But clearly the administration has identified both to be important to the university. As I said there are plenty of institutions that differ from that sentiment, and they probably offer just as high a quality of education. In fact it's the vast majority of institutions that feel that way, so again, you should know what you're getting into when you choose to go to one of the ~10% of schools that offer DI athletics.

(04-08-2018 03:06 PM)CliftonAve Wrote:  Our students get tickets to FB and basketball with those fees, plus a rec center that has been voted one of the best in the country. It’s not that bad of a deal. Obviously since we keep bringing in record new students every year for the past 8-10 years most students aren’t that upset about it.

But there are enough upset about it for a story to be published in the student newspaper, along with quotes from unhappy students.

(04-08-2018 03:35 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  But there are enough upset about it for a story to be published in the student newspaper, along with quotes from unhappy students.

Can't please everyone. I'm not super happy that my taxes go to support wars in the middle east, I still pay my taxes. There's a hell of a lot more reasonable options to transfer schools than there are reasonable options to immigrate to.

If the university has determined athletics are important enough to warrant institutional support AND students are not systematically forced to attend a school (I can't think of a case where they would be)... I don't see this as an issue.

You don't like that your favorite Italian restaurant includes automatic gratuity? Go somewhere else.

That's the beauty of the free market!

(04-08-2018 03:00 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 02:52 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:37 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:15 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  http://www.newsrecord.org/news/soaring-s...06336.html

Cincinnati's student newspaper provided some excellent research into the AAC's athletic subsidies from the student body at each school. Between 2014 and 2017, Cincinnati's athletic department’s deficit totaled almost $102 million — a 33 percent increase over the prior four years.

As high as each student's athletic subsidy was at Cincinnati ($1,238), UConn's was the highest ($1,784). UCF and USF had some of the lowest in the AAC (only a little bit over $100). For UC, it is estimated that athletic fees are rising 13 percent faster than the growth of tuition.

For the OBE programs in UC and UConn, it is pivotal, absolutely pivotal, that the next AAC contract is much more lucrative than the paltry $1.7 million it currently gets from ESPN - especially with the war chest drying up from the Big East severance ending. The rate of these school's athletic subsidy spending in order to play catch up is not only not sustainable, but it is arguably irresponsible to continue spending this amount on athletics while footing the bill to the students. It is very wrong to force even more debt to college students for the potential of "big time" college athletics.

It would be interesting to see if students had the option of paying for these athletic fees, what the percentage would be if they opted into paying them.

No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

That is a strange way to look at it, because the student should not have his or her valid educational program options held hostage to a dumb athletic fee.

There are very few if any services that are not held "hostage" to some fee or built-in cost that the buyer may or may not prefer be there. If you consider sales taxes, virtually every transaction by definition is subsizing other programs that the buyer may not ever use or even support.

College is not different from the primary public education systems across the nation. Millions of dollars are spent on athletics in every school district---even though most middle and high schools students will never play a single sport. Those that have interests in the sciences still subsidize band, cheerleading, wresting, choir, and theatre, ect. Nothing new here.

Huh? High school kids don't pay a fee to fund the football or basketball teams. That funding comes from the school district. So the athletic fees at college are totally different.

Second, in high school, the regular students aren't paying fees to fund "scholarships" for the athletes. They aren't being asked to pay for their own tuition, PLUS pay a fee on top to help defray the cost of an athlete's tuition. Think about how dumb and unfair that is.

If college students are paying a fee to fund intramural athletics on campus, that is appropriate, as it provides a recreational benefit every student can participate in if they want to. Of course, those fees are nothing compared to the fees charged to fund the school's intercollegiate sports teams.

(04-08-2018 04:13 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 03:00 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 02:52 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:37 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:15 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  http://www.newsrecord.org/news/soaring-s...06336.html

Cincinnati's student newspaper provided some excellent research into the AAC's athletic subsidies from the student body at each school. Between 2014 and 2017, Cincinnati's athletic department’s deficit totaled almost $102 million — a 33 percent increase over the prior four years.

As high as each student's athletic subsidy was at Cincinnati ($1,238), UConn's was the highest ($1,784). UCF and USF had some of the lowest in the AAC (only a little bit over $100). For UC, it is estimated that athletic fees are rising 13 percent faster than the growth of tuition.

For the OBE programs in UC and UConn, it is pivotal, absolutely pivotal, that the next AAC contract is much more lucrative than the paltry $1.7 million it currently gets from ESPN - especially with the war chest drying up from the Big East severance ending. The rate of these school's athletic subsidy spending in order to play catch up is not only not sustainable, but it is arguably irresponsible to continue spending this amount on athletics while footing the bill to the students. It is very wrong to force even more debt to college students for the potential of "big time" college athletics.

It would be interesting to see if students had the option of paying for these athletic fees, what the percentage would be if they opted into paying them.

No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

That is a strange way to look at it, because the student should not have his or her valid educational program options held hostage to a dumb athletic fee.

There are very few if any services that are not held "hostage" to some fee or built-in cost that the buyer may or may not prefer be there. If you consider sales taxes, virtually every transaction by definition is subsizing other programs that the buyer may not ever use or even support.

College is not different from the primary public education systems across the nation. Millions of dollars are spent on athletics in every school district---even though most middle and high schools students will never play a single sport. Those that have interests in the sciences still subsidize band, cheerleading, wresting, choir, and theatre, ect. Nothing new here.

Huh? High school kids don't pay a fee to fund the football or basketball teams. That funding comes from the school district. So the athletic fees at college are totally different.

Second, in high school, the regular students aren't paying fees to fund "scholarships" for the athletes. They aren't being asked to pay for their own tuition, PLUS pay a fee on top to help defray the cost of an athlete's tuition. Think about how dumb and unfair that is.

If college students are paying a fee to fund intramural athletics on campus, that is appropriate, as it provides a recreational benefit every student can participate in if they want to. Of course, those fees are nothing compared to the fees charged to fund the school's intercollegiate sports teams.

What do you mean. huh? High school students dont pay a fee period. They do pay taxes that support both the academic and athletic parts of the school district. Furthermore, those that attend private schools pay for the athletic programs as part of their tuition (as well as taxes to support a public school district they dont attend at all---talk about unfair). Bottom line---The cost of maintaining and running a modern primary public school district includes a cost for athletics. That money is not going to academics---which I assume is your argument at the university level. As far as college goes---If mandatory, the athletic fees are simply part of the cost of attendance---no different than building use fees.

My point is---we accept athletic spending that is not self supporting at the local school district level. Not sure why there should be an expectation that programs that are not self sustaining at the HS level will be at the college level. By and large--they are not. Only 20-30 college athletic programs actually make money or break even. Most lose money---just as they do at the HS level.

As for scholarships---how much does it really cost to add one more kid to a class? And by the way, if we are going to get rid of athletics scholarships because its not right to make other kids pay for them---then its not right to make them pay for academic scholarships either.

In the end--it comes down to choice. Do you wish to attend a school with an athletics department or not? That choice is made by the buyer of academic services. If you wish to go to a school with an athletics department your going to have to pay for that amenity. If you wish to go to that school, but dont want to fund its athletics department---well--thats a decision you have to make. However, I cant sympathize with any really whining about it. There are plenty of places to get a degree that do not offer athletics. In fact, since FBS athletic departments appear to the worst offenders in the area of athletic fees---avoiding just 130 schools out of a universe of literally 1000's of higher education options will essentially eliminate the issue for the buyer who wants to avoid high athletic fees.

The reality is----if this issue is a priority with the student---the decision to attend a school with low or no athletic fee is completely and totally within their control.

(04-08-2018 04:57 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 04:13 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 03:00 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 02:52 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:37 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

That is a strange way to look at it, because the student should not have his or her valid educational program options held hostage to a dumb athletic fee.

There are very few if any services that are not held "hostage" to some fee or built-in cost that the buyer may or may not prefer be there. If you consider sales taxes, virtually every transaction by definition is subsizing other programs that the buyer may not ever use or even support.

College is not different from the primary public education systems across the nation. Millions of dollars are spent on athletics in every school district---even though most middle and high schools students will never play a single sport. Those that have interests in the sciences still subsidize band, cheerleading, wresting, choir, and theatre, ect. Nothing new here.

Huh? High school kids don't pay a fee to fund the football or basketball teams. That funding comes from the school district. So the athletic fees at college are totally different.

Second, in high school, the regular students aren't paying fees to fund "scholarships" for the athletes. They aren't being asked to pay for their own tuition, PLUS pay a fee on top to help defray the cost of an athlete's tuition. Think about how dumb and unfair that is.

If college students are paying a fee to fund intramural athletics on campus, that is appropriate, as it provides a recreational benefit every student can participate in if they want to. Of course, those fees are nothing compared to the fees charged to fund the school's intercollegiate sports teams.

What do you mean. huh? High school students dont pay a fee period. They do pay taxes that support both the academic and athletic parts of the school district. Furthermore, those that attend private schools pay for the athletic programs as part of their tuition (as well as taxes to support a public school district they dont attend at all---talk about unfair). Bottom line---The cost of maintaining and running a modern primary public school district includes a cost for athletics. That money is not going to academics---which I assume is your argument at the university level. As far as college goes---If mandatory, the athletic fees are simply part of the cost of attendance---no different than building use fees.

My point is---we accept athletic spending that is not self supporting at the local school district level. Not sure why there should be an expectation that programs that are not self sustaining at the HS level will be at the college level. By and large--they are not. Only 20-30 college athletic programs actually make money or break even. Most lose money---just as they do at the HS level.

As for scholarships---how much does it really cost to add one more kid to a class? And by the way, if we are going to get rid of athletics scholarships because its not right to make other kids pay for them---then its not right to make them pay for academic scholarships either.

In the end--it comes down to choice. Do you wish to attend a school with an athletics department or not? That choice is made by the buyer of academic services. If you wish to go to a school with an athletics department your going to have to pay for that amenity. If you wish to go to that school, but dont want to fund its athletics department---well--thats a decision you have to make. However, I cant sympathize with any really whining about it. There are plenty of places to get a degree that do not offer athletics. In fact, since FBS athletic departments appear to the worst offenders in the area of athletic fees---avoiding just 130 schools out of a universe of literally 1000's of higher education options will essentially eliminate the issue for the buyer who wants to avoid high athletic fees.

The reality is----if this issue is a priority with the student---the decision to attend a school with low or no athletic fee is completely and totally within their control.

“Avoiding 130 schools”....to avoid athletic fees.
It’s a lot less than that. Most of those 130 don’t charge athletic fees. Most aren’t UMASS, UCONN etc. Many have 0 athletic fees and some have 0 subsidies.

ECU will be fine. The school has never had to tax the heck out of its students or the locals to have a football program. The attendance/support is great and not artificial. The locals come to the games in CUSA, AAC etc. whatever circumstances. The schools that will struggle are the ones where there’s never been a sustained local interest in college football:
What athletics cost each student in 2017:
1. UConn $1,784 per student
2. Cincinnati $1,238
3. Wichita St $561
4. Houston $508
Temple’s numbers aren’t listed; I’m assuming they’d be top 3.
ECU: $160
USF: $132- attendance issues and $ for a stadium are issues that loom large though
UCF: $109- in pretty good shape

(04-08-2018 05:42 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  ECU will be fine. The school has never had to tax the heck out of its students or the locals to have a football program. The attendance/support is great and not artificial. The locals come to the games in CUSA, AAC etc. whatever circumstances. The schools that will struggle are the ones where there’s never been a sustained local interest in college football:
What athletics cost each student in 2017:
1. UConn $1,784 per student
2. Cincinnati $1,238
3. Wichita St $561
4. Houston $508
Temple’s numbers aren’t listed; I’m assuming they’d be top 3.
ECU: $160
USF: $132- attendance issues and $ for a stadium are issues that loom large though
UCF: $109- in pretty good shape

(04-08-2018 05:29 PM)billybobby777 Wrote:  “Avoiding 130 schools”....to avoid athletic fees.
It’s a lot less than that. Most of those 130 don’t charge athletic fees. Most aren’t UMASS, UCONN etc. Many have 0 athletic fees and some have 0 subsidies.

I'm just gonna repost this because UMass' financial situation likes to get thrown around a lot. TLDR at $270 per student we're probably somewhere in the middle of the AAC.

(01-22-2018 05:00 PM)McKinney Wrote:  

(01-22-2018 03:21 PM)Steve1981 Wrote:  

(01-22-2018 08:41 AM)TrueBlueDrew Wrote:  Almost everyone who plays in the Sun Belt and CUSA moved up from the FCS and I don’t think a single school except for Idaho obviously would entertain going back.

From a Georgia Southern perspective, we only entered the FBS a few years ago, but our athletic budget has doubled, we’ve added almost 10k seats to our stadium and fill it regularly, and we get more national recognition now than we did even when playing FCS National Championship games.

However, we didn’t move up for that. We moved up to be in the same subdivision as our peer schools. ECU, App State, MTSU, Troy, Texas State, Southern Miss, etc are all listed as our peer institutions and almost all of them are schools we used to play at the D1-AA level before they moved up. That left us as a large public school with 21k (soon to be 28k) students playing in a subdivision dominated by small private colleges with 4-5k students. It was a no brainer to make the decision to move up with our peer schools and I’m glad we did.

That is it on a nail head. We consider ourselves a national research institution and aspire to be AAU. We've been a top 30 public research university for the past 4 years. Almost everybody in that club is FBS. You can argue all you want about who our peers are, but we moved up to be like our peers.

To add on to that... finances don't seem to be a problem. A study by the Pioneer Institute's states that student fees at the University of Massachusetts have increased from $6.662M in FY2004 to $8.151M in FY2015. And although PI (a right-wing think tank that's been in the center of several scandals in Massachusetts) attempts to criticize the athletic department's "out of control finances", that's an increase less than ******* inflation (which would be $8.51M). Additionally, those fees when spread out among our 30,037 students at Amherst (Fall 2016 most recent available data) come to ~$270 or about 0.8% of the cost of attendance for in-state students and 0.5% for out-of-state students. While the cost of D1 athletics is currently not financed by the system, with 74,496 students in the system we could potentially drop that number to ~$100.

And as I said, the student fees have nothing to do with FBS vs FCS as we were paying MORE in student fees during FCS if you adjust for inflation. Similarly, our entire athletics budget accounts for only 3% of our entire budget (Amherst) and (if financed by system in the future) 1% of the system budget. Football (only $8M budget) accounts for only 0.6% of the Amherst budget and (if financed by system in the future) 0.2% of the University of Massachusetts system budget.

Further, the argument cannot be made that taxpayers are holding the, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent burden. The state only supports 22% of the University of Massachusetts system's revenue, meaning that dropping football would save the median family (income of $75,297) only $0.05 on their taxes, yes, 5 ******* cents.

(04-08-2018 01:24 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  

(04-08-2018 11:37 AM)Ohio Poly Wrote:  No one is forced to attend UC or any AAC school. So the fees are optional for all AAC students and they are opting in at a rate of 100%.

Yeah, who cares about schools spending money that isn't naturally being earned and then sticking the bill of expenses to the students?

I would agree that each state should have at least one 4+ year state university without sports subsidies (with correspondingly lower state assisted tuition/fees) so the state residents would have that lower cost option. It is amazing to me that states don't impose some kind of regulations that limit the amount of the student fees, especially for athletics. Then again there seems to be no large scale public outcry.

(04-08-2018 11:15 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  http://www.newsrecord.org/news/soaring-s...06336.html

Cincinnati's student newspaper provided some excellent research into the AAC's athletic subsidies from the student body at each school. Between 2014 and 2017, Cincinnati's athletic department’s deficit totaled almost $102 million — a 33 percent increase over the prior four years.

As high as each student's athletic subsidy was at Cincinnati ($1,238), UConn's was the highest ($1,784). UCF and USF had some of the lowest in the AAC (only a little bit over $100). For UC, it is estimated that athletic fees are rising 13 percent faster than the growth of tuition.

For the OBE programs in UC and UConn, it is pivotal, absolutely pivotal, that the next AAC contract is much more lucrative than the paltry $1.7 million it currently gets from ESPN - especially with the war chest drying up from the Big East severance ending. The rate of these school's athletic subsidy spending in order to play catch up is not only not sustainable, but it is arguably irresponsible to continue spending this amount on athletics while footing the bill to the students. It is very wrong to force even more debt to college students for the potential of "big time" college athletics.

It would be interesting to see if students had the option of paying for these athletic fees, what the percentage would be if they opted into paying them.

First, be careful what you dig into because there are a lot of dubious financial actions being taken to fund collegiate athletics. You can call out subsidizing via fees but you can also say that the media contracts are helping a lot of others go above and beyond what the as a institution generate themselves.


*************
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As far as "fees" go though, you have to also recall that some cover the running of student oriented centers for sports and exercise and just the facilities a school's athletic teams. You also forget that, in most cases, the student body gets free tickets to just about all those sports events so you can play the cost however you want.