The College Cost Crisis

So, why does college cost so much?

The Nation and Brave New Films report that colleges spend 7 times as much on sports as on actual academic programs.

Seven Times.
7x.

Seriously?  I went to UB for my Bachelor's and Master's degrees.  The number of adjunct professors back in 2000 was something that I have never experienced.  And it is getting worse.  Students not being able to take the classes they need to graduate and succeed in their chosen field.

Adjunct professors - Here this semester, gone the next.  What does that do for consistency in the program?  How does that affect the affect students?  Their confidence? Their knowledge?

David Zirin reports that if college sports were required to self-finance, after 1 year only 4 college football teams would be in the black.  Sounds like sports is not the cash cow that the true believers say it is. (I will find the link for this story.)

So with all this money that students are paying for sports, how are they supposed to afford college?

In the Buffalo News (October 11, 2015) Opinions section, Mitchell E.Daniels, Jr. proposes indentured servitude.  (Read the article "A prescription for student debt.")

What he proposes: Students sign a contract with a corporation to pay for their college.  After they graduate, they pay a portion of their income for a number of years to the corporation.  (I'm operating on the premise that the student will also be working for the corporation.)

That is the definition of being an indentured servant.
I thought that went out with the 1700's.  At least that's what my textbooks read.

So, students are taking out massive amounts of college debt, most of which pays for economically unfeasible sporting programs, and they are supposed to sell their souls to the 1% to pay for their future.

If pro-sports need players, let them start farm teams and pay for them out of their own profits.  It is bad enough that we are subsidizing the professional sports team stadiums (and the only publicly owned team is the Packers).  We pay for the concussions and all the other assorted damage that players accrue over the years.  And we have what to show for it?

Part time minimum wage jobs.  Seasonal at that.  And if you are working in a restaurant, even lower wages.

So,  what is to be done?

College is supposed to be about academics and academics alone.  Let the sports teams fund their own farm teams.  If the taxpayers are supposed to subsidize the teams and the stadiums, they should have part ownership & an appropriate share in the profits.

And at that, education is a human right and a social responsibility.  We all benefit from education.  All college education needs to be free to all.  Regardless of class,  race, gender, or age.

We have a crisis on our hands.  Its size is $1.3 trillion.
We owe our students and ourselves more and better than this.