How College Students Are Funding the Athletics Arms Race
By Brad Wolverton, Ben Hallman, Shane Shifflett and Sandhya Kambhampati
[…]In the past five years, public universities pumped more than $10.3 billion in mandatory student fees and other subsidies into their sports programs, according to an examination by The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Huffington Post. The review included an inflation-adjusted analysis of financial reports provided to the NCAA by 201 public universities competing in Division I, information that was obtained through public-records requests.
[…]David Hughes is a Rutgers anthropology professor who has sparred with his administration over ballooning subsidies. His university has spent $172 million in the past five years to underwrite intercollegiate sports, more than any other college in the country during that time.
The two major forms of subsidies, he says, undermine universities in separate ways. Increases in student fees make college more expensive, while rising institutional support of athletics threatens the academic mission. “Add these things together,” he says, “and you have students paying more for a lower-quality education.”
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