People tweeting stuff. We allow tweets from anyone.
RULES:
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
Is this backed by research? Assuming any if these things are true, are there any other/better/cheaper ways to get these same results?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 )
The highest paid high school employees are often the coaches. A lot more money goes into the football than anything else...
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.
This seems inaccurate unless we are considering sums of salaries. If the sports staff makes more than the academic staff this is true. Otherwise your university just sometimes makes bad decisions.
The head coaches typically make 10x the salary of the school pres. they have huge staffs and expensive facilities.
The athletic building in Ann Arbor looks like something NASA would build.
And people will go to a school because they're fans of the football team, or send their kids there because they're fans of the team. To act like the sports programs do nothing to help the university, or their athletes is disingenuous
Having graduated and worked for Purdue and NASA, both of these are not the case there. Coaches are 4x president salary, and the training facility (including the new one) doesn't compare to something like the water training astronaut facility at JSC.
Sports facilities are nice, but they come from a different lot of money and are less funded than, for example, the engineering dept.
Edit: to be extra clear, the sentiment of over paying for sports is fine, but for anyone who graduated for a state school like me, you're taking pot shots at my degree. And so while I agree with the sentiment, heartily fuck you if you didn't put in your 11 years of undergrad and grad school at an ivy league university where this isn't true.
or a state school like me, you're taking pot shots at my degree. And so while I agree with the sentiment,
Lol imagine thinking this is a slight against you.
Anyway comparing your intellectual degree, to your sports scholarship, is stupid. You're there for your muscles, not your brains, and even your school ride proves that. Get saltier.
Edit: to be extra clear, the sentiment of over paying for sports is fine, but for anyone who graduated for a state school like me, you’re taking pot shots at my degree. And so while I agree with the sentiment, heartily fuck you if you didn’t put in your 11 years post under and post graduate at an ivy league university where this isn’t true.
No one is taking pot shots at your degree, lol. I don't see how that is even a thing in your head. We're saying, pay the players and put some of that money back into the university. When the head coach makes 4 million per year, something is not right.
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.
Edit: The U.S. president receives a salary of $400,000 a year and a $50,000 expense account while in office.
Coach Marty Daniels would agree with you. Classes are bullshit.