The Buffalo News had
a feature article today titled “How athletic spending helps boost
enrollment.”
Increasing
enrollment is one thing. Increasing achievement and graduation is
another. And Increasing full time faculty is a whole other ball game
altogether.
And the article
talks about none of these. And it should have been the focus –
holding the people in power accountable for wasting student tuition
dollars on programs that provide no academic worth whatsoever.
As a UB alumni, I
give nothing to the general fund when I make donations. I specify
the 2 departments that I graduated from (Bachelor and Masters
degrees) or the libraries. According to students that I have spoken
with, the general fund goes to support athletic scholarships. I'm
not an athletic supporter in any way. I went to college for
academics and from 1986 to now I have been to 1 total sporting event,
and that was involuntary. I had to go to something for a freshman
colloquium class that I had taken. Easy credit. Totally worthless
as far as academic worth.
And I achieved a
better workout biking from the West Side of Buffalo to the Amherst
campus than any of those athletes on the field received playing the
game. Or preparing for the game all week. Cost to other students?
Zero. Health benefits to me? Many.
I have had my
academics interrupted by sporting events when I couldn't find a
parking space because all the parking near the Lockwood Library was
taken up by people attending a sporting event at the overpriced and
totally underused stadium or at the Alumni Arena. (Cost to
taxpayers? Too much. Utility? Go back two sentences. The University
could have saved money by getting a contract to use Rich Stadium.)
My
questions/problems about this article are that it is too shallow. It
doesn't look at the most important aspect of this whole adventure –
the books. By that I mean the accounting books. The spreadsheets.
And that is all that matters for this story.
Let's get down to
brass tacks: How much are the local universities spending on
athletics as a whole and how much do they bring in? Are they self
sustaining as some universities claim or are they a big vacuum
sucking up money that would better serve the university as a whole if
it was spent to support full time professors?
Any sporting program
that is not 100% self sustaining – gets the ax. Colleges are about
education, not entertainment. UB's athletic program did nothing for
me or anyone that I have spoken with in all the years that I attended
college and have donated except inconvenience us and our educational
goals. I have heard from many students that complain about being
taught by adjunct professors that are here one year (or semester) and
gone the next. (So much for letters of recommendation.) Or can't
get the courses that they need to graduate because they are only
offered at certain times and you need certain pre requisite courses
to take them and those courses aren't always available either. But
the university always has the money for a chartered flight for a
sports team.
How many of the
athletes that receive scholarships actually graduate? And in how
many years? In what major(s)? (I have met so many athletes over the
years majoring in communications and other majors and when I ask them
what their career plans are I get the infamous “I don't know.”
They know they have no chance at playing professionally.)
So, what are
colleges supposed to do?
First: No sports at
all. Can them. It's not their responsibility of the students of the
university to provide fodder for the professional teams. Given the
high profit margins that the professional sports teams have, they
can afford to make their own farm teams. So there are only 32 teams
in the NFL. Not my job to subsidize someone else's pipe dream. The
increased competition will be good for the league. (Am I sounding
like a good conservative capitalist here or what?) Baseball,
basketball, hockey, soccer, etc can all do the same. They have the
money. It's not our job to subsidize their profits.)
Second: If a school
wants to have a sports team – make it a club like the UB Mad
Turtles (Rugby. At least when I went to UB it was a club.) They get
a small stipend and the club members have the responsibility to make
up the rest of their financial needs.
Third: Colleges
need to remember why they exist – career education. Granted, I
took some courses for the fun of it, but I went to college to
prepare me for a career. Originally colleges were created for career
and higher education and they will only move forward if they go back
to their original purpose.
So, this story
looks like it will be a series for several days this week. If it
fails to show how athletics are destroying students' opportunities
and dreams and saddling them with debt, it is a waste of ink and paper.
Somehow I doubt we
will see anything critical.
So I am not going to
hold my breath.
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