Alan C. Posted January 16, 2013 Posted January 16, 2013 Public universities spend more than $100G per athlete, about six times more than academics Annual spending on sports by public universities in six big-time conferences like the SEC and Big 12 has passed $100,000 per athlete — about six to 12 times the amount those universities are spending per student on academics, according to a study released Wednesday to greet college presidents arriving at the NCAA's annual meeting in Texas. The study finds the largest gap by far in the Southeastern Conference, which combines relatively low academic spending and explosive coaching salaries. Median athletic spending there totaled nearly $164,000 per athlete in 2010. That is more than 12 times the $13,390 that SEC schools spent per student for academic expenses, including instructional costs and student services. . . . Overall, FBS schools spent on average $92,000 per athlete in 2010, or just under seven times what they were spending per student on academics at a time of falling state funding for higher education in much of the country, and tuition increases widely outpacing inflation. . . . ...every conference football coach now earns at least $2 million. Already this off-season, four losing conference programs — Tennessee, Kentucky, Auburn and Arkansas — have hired new coaches at annual salaries of between $2.2 million and $3.2 million. The University of Mississippi's Hugh Freeze, the conference's lowest-paid coach, got a $500,000 raise to $2 million, a 10 percent raise for his assistants, and a $12.5 million upgrade to practice facilities.
Magnus Posted January 16, 2013 Posted January 16, 2013 Like American Express, casinos and insurance companies, universities are investment clubs. They use classrooms as the front-of-house operation, to generate the cash, which they then float in various investments. The athletic programs are there as circuses, to keep the parents sending their kids there.
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