NY Times: At Rutgers, It’s Books vs. Ballgames

[Tugg Speedman]

At Rutgers, It's Books vs. Ballgames
May 12, 2015
Joe Nocera

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/opinion/joe-nocera-at-rutgers-its-books-vs-ballgames.html?ref=opinion

It's not exactly a secret that big-time college sports often distort priorities on university campuses. But every once in a while, something bursts into public view to put those priorities in glaring relief. A recent example is a fight that is taking place at Rutgers University. The dispute pits faculty members who want to restrain the athletic department's out-of-control costs against some powerful alumni who want the Rutgers athletic department to spend even more money to better compete in its new conference, the Big Ten.

Guess who's likely to win?

Although Rutgers is said to have played the first American college football game ever — against Princeton, in 1869 — it has never been an athletic powerhouse. In the 1990s, yearning to join the elite, Rutgers became part of the Big East Conference. But, with the exception of women's basketball, its overall athletic performance has generally remained mediocre.

Business, regulation, Wall Street, the N.C.A.A. and guns.

What's more, the Rutgers athletic department has consistently run large deficits; indeed, since the 2005-6 academic year, deficits have exceeded $20 million a year. In the last academic year, Rutgers athletics generated $40.3 million in revenue, but spent $76.7 million, leaving a deficit of more than $36 million. In other words, revenue barely covered half the department's expenses.

And how did the university cover this shortfall? Partly, it used its own funds, to the tune of $26 million last year, money that might have gone to professors' salaries or other academic needs. It also took it out of the hide of the students themselves, who have been assessed steadily rising fees to help cover the athletic department's deficit. Last year, fees that went to athletics amounted to $10 million.

A few years ago, in an effort to relieve the financial pressure, Rutgers accepted an invitation to join the Big Ten, perhaps the wealthiest conference in the country. With football powers like Ohio State and Michigan, the Big Ten not only has lucrative deals with ABC and ESPN, it also has its own TV network. Thanks to those TV deals, last year the Big Ten paid out some $27 million to its 11 qualifying universities.

Yet even with the Big Ten's money (and to be fair, as a new member, Rutgers won't reap the full rewards for six years), the Rutgers athletic department is projecting deficits at least through the 2021-22. Indeed, according to figures compiled by a faculty committee, Rutgers athletics is projecting a total deficit of $183 million between now and 2022.

You can see, of course, why this would infuriate faculty members — or, for that matter, anyone who cares about academics. Like most state schools, Rutgers has seen its state financing shrink drastically over the last decade, while tuition and fees have been going up. Academic departments have had multiple rounds of belt-tightening. "At the school of arts and sciences," said Mark Killingsworth, a Rutgers economics professor who has been a leading voice against the athletic department's costs, "we have been told that we can hire one person for every two who leave." The library, he noted, recently had its budget cut by more than $500,000. Meanwhile, Kyle Flood, the football coach, is getting a $200,000 raise next year, taking his salary to $1.25 million.

In late March, the Rutgers faculty senate approved, by a wide margin, a report written by its Budget and Finance Committee that called on the athletic department to eliminate its losses within five years; to end the use of student fees to cover the athletic budget; and to treat the use of discretionary funds as loans.

The $26 million per year to subsidize the Athletics Department should be redeployed to pay the salaries of star faculty hired from other...

Joe,You are assuming that a college is about education. I suspect that is even true for some students. For many students, however college...

Infiltrating the universities with commercial sports, left-leaning guerrillas, or anything non-academic simply weakens the universities....

Almost immediately afterward, a powerful Rutgers alumnus, State Senator Raymond Lesniak, commissioned a study aimed at showing that Rutgers needed to invest more in athletics, not less. Why? One reason is the supposed economic benefits that come with a successful sports program. Another rationale is that now that Rutgers is in the Big Ten, it will have to step up its game to compete — which, of course, would require lavish facilities, just like those at Ohio State and Michigan.

Lesniak, who just filed a bill that would give Rutgers $25 million in tax credits for infrastructure projects, clearly relishes the idea of Rutgers becoming, as he puts it, "Big Ten-ready." So do other alums, including Greg Brown, the chairman of the Rutgers Board of Governors. "We weren't interested in joining the Big Ten," Brown said after one board meeting. "We were interested in competing and winning in the Big Ten." And if that requires spending money, well, that's what the big boys do.

Responds Killingsworth: "The mantra has always been that if we spend enough money, we'll have good teams, and generate more revenue. It's never happened."

Rutgers is an enormous public institution, with an annual budget of $3.6 billion. It is responsible for educating 65,000 students. Why isn't that more important that competing in the Big Ten?

Why does the tail always wag the dog?

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

It's not often I agree with the NYT and liberal academics, but the situation is absurd.

Of course, I think spending on athletics is only part of the problem. Unbelievably bloated bureaucracy is also a huge problem. Some of the spending on empire-building bureaucrats should go to hiring more faculty, or reducing the dependence on TA's and adjuncts.

I really wonder how much of the college athletics system depends on having ~250 low-level athletic programs for the majors to beat up on. If the schools who are losing money immediately reduced spending to match revenue, and withdrew from the P5 culture, would there be enough of a following in college athletics for the power schools to survive? I'm guessing so, but in diminished form.

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

Some really good comments on that story.

[GGGG]

As with many of these stories, it completely misses key points.  Athletics is a marketing expense.  It isn't a self-supporting exercise at most places.  For instance, Rutgers just finished a $1B fund-raising campaign.

http://www.support.rutgers.edu/s/896/Foundation/Giveindex.aspx?sid=896&gid=1&pgid=1785

How many people who give to Rutgers feel closer to the University because of athletics?  Would this campaign have been as successful?  To be honest, I don't know the answers to those questions.  But even a $800M campaign would have been 8 years worth of University investment into athletics. 

Look, there are reasons that more and more schools are making larger investments into athletics...at all levels of the NCAA.  And contrary to what I read, it isn't because of simply herd mentality or "empire building."  It's because schools have figured out that it is actually a cost effective way to make alumni feel good about the school and bring them back to campus.  It is also a marketing tool for student recruitment. Why do you think Marquette plows so much into its basketball program?

I know that Professor Joe Blow thinks that if they just paid professors more, and maybe get some faculty who will earn a Fulbright now and again, that this will be a substitute.  It isn't.

[vogue65]

"Unbelievably bloated bureaucracy"
The morning of the 9-11, on the front page of the Orlando paper there was a story about the visit to Orlando of our Secretary of Defense, the Honorable Donald Rumsfeld.  He was in Orlando to give a speech against our number one enemy, the unbelievably bloated bureaucracy.
I am so tired of hearing lame arguments against the Republican straw man, the unbelievably bloated bureaucracy. 

[WellsstreetWanderer]

Didn't it just come out that the Gubmint wased a BILLION dollars last year?  Bloated bureaucracy is hardly a straw man by anybody's definition

[Chicago_inferiority_complexes]

Ask any professor at any major university whether he thinks the school has put more resources into teaching or more resources into the bloated bureaucracy the last 25 years.