Yeah universities should be about academics. Not sports. In fact, Universities, in my opinion, should just be banned from HAVING sports teams. Do that shit outside of school lmao. You shouldn’t be getting ACADEMIC scholarships because you can… “throw ball good”.
Counterpoint: universities exist to teach young people to be competent, well rounded members of society, including exposure to quality academics, music, art and sport. If you just want job training, go to trade school; if you just want academics, go to the library.
That’s what high school does (or should do).
That counter point is a classist view that id all too common in america. Not saying you are classist by having that view. But that a system based on that view, which america is, is classist.
Universities have historically been institutions of class structure, and not just in the US. I doubt that will change any time soon, and can’t honestly think of how it could. Tertiary education requires that a person give up some part of their potentially-working day to activities that don’t pay rent or put food on the table. Nevermind direct costs of education, if you don’t pay people to be students, then it will continue to reinforce class structure.
Personally, I think it’s in the state’s interest to encourage every individual to pursue as much education, of whatever form, as they choose. Tertiary education through university, college, or trade school ought to be without direct cost, and we ought to have enough social safety net to secure people while they pursue it. Do that, and some new structure will develop so employers can identify upper-class candidates, like unpaid internships.
That’s not how it is here in switzerland.
High school is to be well rounded.
In uni 95% of your courses are in your subject matter. Also non-university jobs are well valued. To the point we are on of the only countries where the working class isn’t getting poorer year on year compared to the 1%
So before I get into this, know that I’m biased as a colligate sport fan and a former NCAA athlete. But this is a bad take. Sports provide all sorts of benefit both internally and externally for the university. It is true that some athletic budgets are insane, and for what it’s worth I agree that the salaries that get paid are insane. But this is simply the price of an arms war. These colleges want the best facilities and coaches. And it’s not just for the dick measuring contest, though make no mistake that is absolutely part of it. But all sorts of studies show that general contributions and academic donations in particular increase with athletic team success, notably championship winning teams. People like to belong to a community, and sports fandom is one of the most tried and true sources of community. Plus the tv contacts for the so called revenue sports would make an oil tycoon blush. The presidents of these schools continue to invest in these programs because they continually prove to be an excellent roi. And I firmly believe that these same presidents know more than either of us about running their universities. And all of that is aside from what these sports provide to the most important stakeholders in a college, it’s enrollees. Again recognizing my bias here, but the only reason I made it through school to get my 2 degrees that I use professionally was the sports team I trained with. These teams provide structure to the college life, something that can be hard to maintain as you essentially start a new life. Plus, sport and exercise prove to boost academic performance both on the short and long timescale. Most institutions report higher average GPAs in the athletic department than the general population. Ever notice that elite academic institutions also tend to have elite athletic programs? This isnt always obvious as it’s often non revenue sports outside of the state schools that are in the aforementioned dick measuring contest. And even schools that aren’t know for athletic or academics will still tend to offer intramural sports as again they are a massive boon for the students but I feel like at this point I’m straying from the original point. All in all these athletic programs are good for both the institution as a whole, and those that study at them.
tl;dr Sports good for college
I would agree with you but the statistics are so far out of proportion in America right now. Across the country you have many schools who can barely fund educational departments while continuously increasing sports funding. This happened at my college recently, several times. We lost several history classes due to the football team requiring more budget.
So what you have instead is this awful cycle where they make so much more money from investing in sports than education, so they raise the education prices to fund both. Yet the government is subsidizing or at least fronting the cost for students. So now you have even less pressure to continue being an actual college. They begin to chase sports to the moon at the cost of all else.
Then you have the actual effect of sports players on the college itself where they attend. I know some hard working athletes with legitimate degrees, but those athletes are the first to tell me that the rest of the athletes are there for worthless degrees. So now you have to account for the fact that athletes are an investment in facilities and arenas and departments as well. Further skewing the purposes of the college.
The whole system is beyond broken and colleges shouldn’t have to depend on anything except education costs to survive
And this is where I absolutely will cross the aisle and agree with you. I obviously care for sport and think it can be massively beneficial. But I too see some of these smaller schools breaking their own back (and bank) trying to get some of that p5 football money. The school I am a fan of won’t even blink at a 7 or 8 figure bill for a sports complex upgrade, because they absolutely will make that money back. But the school I attended tried something similar (way smaller bill) and there was widespread outrage amongst the student population and rightfully so. This gets into that dick measuring contest I mentioned and I fully agree with you, that should not and can not be allowed to negatively impact academics. Sports are a net positive, but like all things not named heroin, they should be pursued in moderation.
Plus the tv contacts for the so called revenue sports would make an oil tycoon blush. The presidents of these schools continue to invest in these programs because they continually prove to be an excellent roi.
From my understanding, all that money goes back to the sport’s team, not the university. It’s a side hussle. If the money went back to the university, it would at least make sense.
It depends on the school.
Most fans don’t realize that not only do athletic departments pay the university market rate for the tuition, room and board of its student athletes, but also the upcharge for out-of-state students.
At nearly one-third of the schools I polled back in 2012 for my book, the university took a specified percentage of each donation made to the athletic department.
At many universities I polled, the university and athletic department split licensing revenue 50/50. So, even if the sweatshirt sold in the bookstore is specifically branded for the football program, that money is divided between the university and athletics.
True, but it’s in the minority for the donations:
At nearly one-third of the schools I polled back in 2012 for my book, the university took a specified percentage of each donation made to the athletic department.
Is that 1% or 10%? “Many” is a very vague term for financials. Plus, those were the ones polled.
At many universities I polled, the university and athletic department split licensing revenue 50/50.
Not to be a stickler, but having some universities do a little isn’t much.
Did you forget the first and biggest one?
All those athletic scholarships are paid for by the sports teams. It’s free money for the university. And the football team funds all the other sports, so a lot of football money goes to the university as tuition for an out-of-state soccer player or something.
Plus who do you think the sports teams pay rent and facilities fees to? The university who owns their facilities. The teams are non-profit so football has little incentive to save money.
How much are those scholarships worth every year?
UW football coach Kalen DeBoer is the 44th highest-paid coach in NCAA college football, with a total annual pay of $4.2 million, USA Today found.
If there’s an arms race for athletes and the school sports programs pay their tuition through athletic scholarships, then that isn’t free money for the school. It’s allocated out of an already existing school budget that constantly needs to grow and take from other school expenses to afford elite athletes. The sports teams pay rent to the school out of the same existing budget which is part of the school funding so again, it’s money the school already has that has to allocated for upkeep of their facilities. Just like the regular students pay upkeep for the engineering facility, the administration buildings, and the other facilities with their non-scholarship money (meaning it actually came from an external source instead of the school subsidizing).
I’ll admit I was incorrect. Not a take I put much thought into.
Even so your ability to ingest new data and change your opinion should be commended!
I do try. I feel that if someone isn’t willing to change their opinion on ANYTHING, when presented with a compelling argument and the appropriate evidence… well, that is their problem. The whole “can’t logic someone out of a conclusion they didn’t arrive at with logic”.
there’s a lot of things wrong with college sports but kids getting a chance to get higher education that otherwise might not is absolutely not one of them.
Yes, but that opportunity should be granted based on economic need and a demonstrated ability to work hard, not based on athletic ability, because athletic ability is unrelated to your ability to study economics or physics or philosophy.
Just my personal experience, but I’ve found that the ability to work hard and push through doing things you don’t want to do is very much transferable between sports and academics.
It completely excludes a lot of people with physical disabilities or health problems though. I promise you that the kid with a chronic health condition that has them in and out of the hospital while they’re getting through school is a harder worker than the captain of the football team that’s just maintaining their GPA to stay on the team.
Edit: Also, it’s sexist as hell. The best scholarships are for men’s sports and many women’s sports don’t get anywhere near the same support as men’s sports, even in equivalent ones like soccer and basketball. There’s no women’s football league, and the women’s leagues for other sports are abysmally supported.
Of course. It shouldn’t be the sole criterion for selecting students. But if it does reflect your academic potential, then I don’t see why it can’t be one of the criteria for a subset of students. Everyone has different ways of expressing their abilities and different limitations. There’s no known single metric that can accurately capture that for everyone.
I think the bigger issue is the lack of scholarships for non-athletic activities. There are many other things that colleges and universities could give scholarships for that would foster a more diverse and inclusive student body, but the preferential treatment given to athletes actually impedes that through diversion of funds.
I was rather happy when my alma mater decided to use a pile of alumni association money to build a massive LAN center and start pro e-sports teams instead of starting a football program. The e-sports program will give scholarships not just for the gamers, but also for theater kids that become shoutcaster personalities, and they use the LAN center as a way to beta test the games coming out of the game development programs. They really emphasize the educational aspect of it as well and push the gamers to get involved in game design or creative writing majors/minors so that their scholarship activity can actually benefit their career after school. It does help that the school is down the road from Acti-Blizz, so internships are plentiful.
There are other ways for the schools to support potentially profitable student activities that don’t exclude people unable to participate in sports.
Just my personal experience, but I’ve found that the ability to work hard and push through doing things you don’t want to do is very much transferable between sports and academics.
Yes, and those scholarships should be given to those who have proven that they do work hard on academics.
good thing economic and academic scholarships also exist. there’s an absolutely tiny number of athletic scholarships and athletes compared to the total student body in every single university. removing the athletic scholarships and athletes will only hurt the athletes and not help anyone else.
good thing economic and academic scholarships also exist. there’s an absolutely tiny number of athletic scholarships and athletes compared to the total student body in every single university. removing the athletic scholarships and athletes will only hurt the athletes and not help anyone else.
There’s the context of opportunity cost. If you use money to give an athletic scholarship, you can’t use this money for something else. Hence, if the athletic scholarships were replaced by other types of scholarships, it would help those others.
yeah thanks for the condescending lesson on opportunity cost, i totally didn’t indirectly address that with the population discrepency between athletics and total student body.
Nah, it isn’t sport’s fault that academics hasn’t found a marketable avenue for spectators to appreciate the craft. There needs to be more innovation in competitive aseptic technique or fantasy math league.
Upon reflection, you guys are correct. My opinion has been changed, though it wasn’t a comment I put too much thought into. Appreciate your opinion & commentary
atheletics have been a vital part of the education system since schools have been a thing
You are correct. A renaissance person does need to have a physical aspect of their education. Suppose saying that I viewed universities as things that should produce research. Guess that is what research labs are for.
Football is a PhD and chess is an Olympic sport. Seems fair to me.
Bad take with no argument to justify it.
Sports are good for universities. Monetarily it’s easy to see why, but it’s also academically good too. Having sports teams builds a sense of community for the school that will bolster fraternizing between otherwise separate groups of people. This leads to students forming broader webs of connections than they otherwise would, which gives better outcomes after graduation since they know more things about more of the world, which is the point of going to a university.
Well that’s news to all the universities outside the US who manage to cope with just educating people and not needing 100,000 seater stadiums. People fraternise on their own. They don’t need enormous sports budgets to do it.
Our sports culture in the US is unlike any other country in the world and so comparing it to other countries is a pointless endeavor.
In fact pretty much all schools in the US all the way down to the smallest college field sports teams because it’s essential in advertising and marketing the school and recruiting students (either by recruiting students who are familiar with and fans of the sports team and the larger schools or by recruiting students who still want to compete in organized sports for the smaller schools)
Sports coaches are often compensated the most and athletes often get the most valuable scholarships because they generate the most marketing and advertising value and in cases of the highest level teams, make TV revenue back for the university.
If you want to put your complaints somewhere, complain about how public universities have to compete with each other for lucrative out of state and international students to meet their budgets because they are underfunded from the government.
Australian universities have sports. I suspect all universities have sports. The difference is outside the US sport is for the participants and is watched by the participants’ families. Our youth football doesn’t draw a crowd, people favour footy played by adults
But culturally, in the US, sports are how (a plurality of) people fraternize. Even our most prestigious universities, like the world-famous Harvard, has a football team.
Yeah, and as someone raised in Europe where education is actually valued, I think that’s dumb. Education institutions should be there to educate, not to entertain
Lot can be learned on the field.
So you don’t have drinking and fucking or looking down on the poors to bond over?
I mean if you want to be a dick you’re allowed to do so but why is that what you want
Is this backed by research? Assuming any if these things are true, are there any other/better/cheaper ways to get these same results?
Like the other comment pointed out, pretty much every other country where students socialise through clubs, extra-curricular activities, in the library, etc etc. Ah fuck, who am I kidding, it all happens at the bar lmao.
Sounds like someone played sports in University
I am still in university, and don’t play sports, and am glad that my school participates in NCAA sports
I suppose I’m biased as I have never had any interest whatsoever in things such as soccer (football for you freedom haters), basketball, golf, etc etc. Just don’t give a fuck about them. They’re used as the circus part of the bread and circuses in todays world. I mean, look at FIFA. Dumbfucks buy that every year or two cuz they love that corporate slop because “hurrduur f00tball”. Like if you want to play football… go play it in person. Why are you doing it in a video game :|
Because not everyone shares your tastes, and the fact that it makes a fuckton of money every year reflects that.
Also, most people I know who play FIFA also play Association Football. You need to rest muscles in between workouts to train properly, and if you really like Soccer, why not keep playing it while resting?
People like what they like. If it brings them joy, for sure. Football fans tend to be annoying as all fuck is why I have these opinions.
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Lucky for me I can Math way better than I can ball
A true baller
I can’t actually. Someone apparently really like watch ball get throw far
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I’m not sure if I remember correctly but don’t most athletic programs not pay for themselves? Don’t they require a portion of the tuition from non athletics students to continue functioning and in that case wouldn’t it mean that there is in fact less education happening due to the athletic program?
https://www.goacta.org/news-item/most_ncaa_division_i_athletic_departments_take_subsidies/
https://www.knightcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/jones.pdf
Just because a portion of funding doesn’t make it back to the classroom for other students, a university is more than its academics. And the gyms and training centers built for the athletic program can often be used by other students at schools where the athletic program isn’t popular enough to pay for itself.
And gyms could still be built for student use using significantly less leeching on the students. I know that because my university had quality gyms and no sports teams outside of intramural.
I’m just going to tuck this in here: https://fiscal.wa.gov/Staffing/Salaries
It isn’t just the highest paid university staff it is often highest paid state employees
UW and WSU football programs aren’t even good, why are they paying them that much?
Did you see the amount A&M gave their last coach to GTFO for being bad?
As an Aggie… this hurts because it’s true
Because they generate more than they make.
UW went undefeated and lost to Michigan in the top 4 playoffs…last season.
Lol some Dr that invented some crazy new health economics in the 90s and has a Harvard economics degree and a real doctor degree and was director of the WHO makes less than like a dozen ball touching people.
This would be far more convincing coming from someone that isn’t an evangelical religious nutjob teaching at a school with barely enough students to field an American football team (yes I know it’s Australia) much less be competitive in any major sports.
Controversial thesis: if you teach creationism in college as a factual accounting of history, then it’s not a university. It’s a cult with a side hustle in tertiary education.
A society which charges students to acquire knowledge values neither.
That seems like an Utopian view you’re not paying for the knowledge but for the resources to learn and accreditation. Universities, professors, etc don’t pay for themselves. Even when University is “free” you are paying it through taxes - which is still fine by me.
I don’t agree, though, with the prices practiced in the US, that’s just a way of restraining the population. Where I’m from, going to college is not expensive, I cannot fathom having to pay those ridiculous prices.
Paying via taxes is not charging students.
You do not pay taxes based on your use of public education or use of any other public service but based on your income and/or wealth.
If you do not make sufficient income as a student to pay taxes or enough taxes to cover the cost of your education your public education is in fact free to you.
What I meant is someone has to pay for it, it’s not free lunch. You’re right that the students don’t pay it through taxes, but someone has to. Myself as a working person do pay for others through taxes
Edit: as people seem to have failed to see my point: I’m glad my taxes help pay for other’s studies
Why do you think OP is not aware that there are costs to be paid but merely disagrees with using sports as a way to pay for it?
You even used the word Utopian. Well most universities are not financed via sports even non public ones. Far from Utopian.
A society which charges students to acquire knowledge values neither.
Because this is literally what he said. He never mentioned sports, just charging in general.
I understand his sentiment, but it’s not practical.
Charging students ≠ paying for the education through taxation as a public good
It must be practical as it is the normal way university works in much of the industrial world
Yes yes go read my other comments.
It is practical; Wholely tax funded universities do not charge students.
Yes I think we both agree with that. It was a misinterpretation on my part of OP arguments: no charging at all vs charging students
Don’t think of it as paying for others, think of it as paying to live in a more civilised society. You benefit from talented doctors and engineers that cannot otherwise afford college being a part of your society. Heck, even if they can tackle student loans, which would you prefer, a dentist stressed about making the next payment or one that is carefree and can focus on fixing your teeth with as little pain as possible?
Read my comment again, you entirely missed my point: I want to think about it as paying it for others. I’m all for it I’ll gladly pay taxes to allow others to go study, it’s one of the things I’ll defend fiercely. An educated society is a better one
Oh, my bad! I get it now!
I never claimed education shouldn’t be paid for, nor that resources shouldn’t be applied to its provision, but a society which levels the financial burden on the student is imposing an artificial and indefensible barrier on their collective progress.
Further, education can only be framed as expensive when it is not appropriately valued as the investment it is.
Finally, taxes don’t pay for anything when the funding originates from the issuing entity of a fiat currency.
but a society which levels the financial burden on the student is imposing an artificial and indefensible barrier on their collective progress.
I absolutely agree with this.
Finally, taxes don’t pay for anything when the funding originates from the issuing entity of a fiat currency.
Not sure I understand your point
I’m so sick of this “nOtHiNg is fReE” retort. Yeah, no shit it isn’t. Most of us are aware of that. Like others have said, what we mean is taxes should be the means by which we pay for education. Taxes paying for education is not utopian. It exists as a means for paying for education in the USA already, K-12. I personally don’t think it is a stretch to change higher education to a tax drive model. Even in a world where it is “free” for the students there will still be people who don’t go, so it’s not like we have to collect taxes to account for all persons. College is not for everyone. Also if you try to use current college tuition as an excuse for it costing the tax payers too much, I don’t want to hear it. It is already well established that higher education costs have balloned faster that other products and services in the market and I think that is a symptom of the stupid profit models of modern universities and colleges. From personal experience at university, you get treated like a line item on there accounting sheets rather than a student and that alone is a huge factor in the enshittification of higher education.
If you read my other comments you’ll see that I defend exactly what you said …
I’m pretty sure the football coach is the highest paid state employee since our big university is a state school.
Highest paid public employee not just at the universities but compared to every public employee in the state.
These are the eight where it isn’t a football coach as of 2020:edit: screw it couldn’t format it to look good
If you live in the southeast, Midwest, or Texas/Oklahoma I can almost guarantee you the head football coach is the highest paid state employee by a considerable margin.
Yup. The highest paid public employees are all big football school coaches
Reminds me of a random quip about how American universities are real estate holding companies with sports team subsidiaries that also, on occasion, also award academic degrees.
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Are you one of those Latinos I keep hearing about?
Yeah, but at least they gave the poor free food.
FTFY: then it is not an university, it is an American university.
My university has no sports, nobody has time or energy for that. Best we’ve got is the bi weekly chess “club” of our Prof for theoretical computer science.
The highest paid high school employees are often the coaches. A lot more money goes into the football than anything else…
football also makes a lot more money than anything else
At high school? They better not!
some of the high school stadiums in texas are as big as NFL stadiums. no lie.
There are many insane facilities for high school sports, but the largest HS stadium in Texas is Memorial Stadium in Mesquite, which seats 19.6k.
The smallest stadium in the NFL is Soldier Field in Chicago, which seats 61.5k.
i guess the picture i saw of one looked way bigger than it actually was. still nearly 20k people for a high school game is insane
BigBananaDealer: “no lie”
You:
In the short term at least, yes. But considering American schools get most of their funding based on students’ academic performance – and low grades means they get defunded and have to cut things like schoolbuses, supplies, and education programs & quality – it’s a very short-sighted thing to do for schools which don’t have peak student performance (and most schools overpaying coaches and underpaying teachers don’t have good student performance). Not to imply that you were saying that this isn’t the case
And that money gets plugged right back into the sports teams. When I was in high school, our theater auditorium where we did our plays was literally falling apart. We had to tape off seat rows that were unusable. But the football team got new locker rooms with jacuzzis in them.
And if you don’t have an elite sports team and instead have a multi-billion dollar endowment then you’re a hedge fund with a side hustle in tertiary education.
I like that diagnosis. It can be used elsewhere.
If the highest paid person at your software company does not write software then you are not a software company but a sustaining a rich person by exploiting employees’ limited time on the planet company.
If the highest paid person at your delivery company does not work as a delivery person then you are not a delivery company but a sustaining a rich person by exploiting employees’ limited time on the planet company.
If the highest paid person at your construction company does not build and construct things then you are not a construction company but a sustaining a rich person by exploiting employees’ limited time on the planet company.
Huh there is a trend here.
I actually think having the sports teams is fine if they pay their players and half of the money goes back to the University students. At UW in Seattle, I think they started letting the players receive money from sponsors, but not directly get paid. Also, it’s its own organization and not tied to the school, so all money made goes back to the coaches, the equipment and who tf knows what else. It’s a scam.
Coach Marty Daniels would agree with you. Classes are bullshit.
Because it’s a government position with an extremely noncompetitive salary. The role I’m in right now, that college role’s salary is about 40% of that.
You want to know why schools are getting ransomware so frequently?
And that thesis doesn’t mean shit.
You gonna downplay my 11 years of blood, sweat, and tears for a PhD because I went to a state school? I’d be happy to prove how much bullshit that is against any ivy League engineer you know.
An Ivy League education is an expensive luxury product for the parents. That way they can brag to their peers about their children. It’s well known that the main benefit of an Ivy education is networking. That’s because of the connections that the parents have, not because the education is better.
With the exception of maybe Princeton or Columbia, top research isn’t coming out of Ivy League schools. And the good research they do have is because they pay the top people more. They don’t have smarter students, they just have more resources.
MIT isn’t an Ivy. Cal Tech isn’t an Ivy. Stanford isn’t. UC Berkeley and University of Michigan definitely aren’t.
With the exception of maybe Princeton or Columbia, top research isn’t coming out of Ivy League schools.
Doesn’t Harvard have one of the most advanced medical programs in the entire world? Perhaps the best even. Especially in fields related to cancer research.
Mayo, Stanford, University of Michigan and University of Minnesota all turn out more research than Harvard does, and those are just the tip of the iceberg. Harvard is a big name, but they aren’t making the big breakthroughs anymore.
Also the ivy league medical schools don’t provide as much in the way of community medical services as the others do. To my knowledge, Harvard isn’t out there running critical access hospitals in rural communities at a loss like Mayo and University of Minnesota are.
(And I’m absolutely positive that there are a bunch of other state universities and medical programs that do just as much as Mayo and University of Minnesota in terms of community medical services, but I’m just not as familiar with them )
All this tweet is about is that it’s bullshit that sports coaches are paid more than educators.
Where does it say any of that?
Nowhere. It could also didn’t say (but could have said) any school that participates in the Greek system is just a party network that occasionally gives degrees.
I don’t like sports or Greek stuff but I don’t like downplaying the quality of academics of an institution even more than that. Lots of us gave a decade or more to the academic parts of those places and it is shitty to write it off as an afterthought to sports or frats or whatever. It tastes bad to read shit like this after paying more student loans than the cost of the house of the person tweeting it, you know?
I get you but frats are not a great comparison considering they don’t suck funding out of schools in exchange for … entertainment you have to pay a second time for.
It might taste bad for you but how about the students in underfunded programs due to the leeching of athletics? They paid to go to a place of learning and there are only so many seats, which are being reduced to fund… a useless activity. Before you jump on the well rounded individual thing, intramural sports are what most students would have access to and do not require the massive amount of spending that collegiate sports require so it’s not a benefit for the rest of the student population. Why should they be required to hold their tongue because it gives you a bad taste?
Where I went the funding pools were entirely separate. Sports pays for sports stuff (buildings, staff, recruitment, etc. and does some endowment stuff additionally) and the academic stuff comes from tuition and academic grants. Sports drives name recognition and also boosts enrollment rates.
Its bad for parking, but it’s just how business works. Maybe if we were in a country that funded higher ed this wouldn’t be a problem, but we don’t have any pure universities outside maybe some community colleges.
