Post by WVUMntneerJim on Jun 7, 2010 15:57:47 GMT -5
I also went into some big-time Marshall hate at HailWV.com.
hailwv.com/2010/06/07/moo-u-students-should-demand-a-refund/
Marshall students pay heavily to support sports
by Ry Rivard
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Marshall University students pay about $890 a year, or nearly a fifth of what tuition costs, to support the university's sports programs.
By contrast, West Virginia University students are required to pay only $157 a year.
In a new report, the Center for College Affordability and Productivity says an arms race in college sports is contributing to increased costs for students.
But, contrary to popular belief, the costs are being felt most by students at smaller schools with less prestigious athletic programs, according to the Washington-based think tank.
Athletic programs at bigger schools in top conferences are able to pick up more revenue from ticket sales, licensing fees and TV deals. In smaller conferences, students and taxpayers are being asked to pick up a larger share of the tab for sports programs.
In West Virginia, the difference between the "haves" and the "have nots" is illustrated by WVU and Marshall, said Matthew Denhart, one of the report's authors.
In an e-mail, Dehart provided figures that came from federal financial records and an analysis of athletic department budgets compiled by USA Today.
Marshall spent about $24 million on athletics last year. About $12.8 million was in subsidies from either student fees or directly or indirectly from institutional monies that are ultimately made up in part by taxpayer dollars, according to the center.
At WVU, student fees and taxpayer dollars amounted to just under 8 percent of the athletic department's $55 million budget in 2008-09.
At Marshall, about $890 a year from each student's tuition went toward funding college sports. In-state undergraduate tuition is about $5,200 a year.
Looking at the money Marshall sends from its university side to its athletic department, about 19 percent of its overall tuition revenue goes to fund sports, according to the center's data.
In other words, if Marshall eliminated its fees for the athletic department, it could cut student tuition by nearly a fifth. But then, its athletic department would lose about half the money it uses to operate each year.
Marshall officials were unable to precisely replicate the figures provided by the Denhart's organization. However, assistant athletic director for media relations Randy Burnside said the numbers were "probable."
"Rich, famous and athletically well-known schools have only been trivially impacted at the institutional level by the explosion in intercollegiate athletic costs, while a significant number of schools that are, on average, poorer, less prestigious, and athletically more marginal have been clobbered," Denhart and Richard Vedder said in the center's report. "We can say that athletic subsidies are a tax on other revenues, a tax diverting resources from traditional academic purposes, and this tax is highly regressive, hitting the poor more than the rich."
Burnside said the think tank's arguments miss the mark by ignoring the importance of college sports, which bring in a diverse student body and are a "part of the college experience."
Burnside also said the numbers don't tell the whole story.
"I think athletics more than pays for itself in the exposure it gives the institution on a national basis," he said. "That value, which this report totally ignores, is huge, even to the smaller institutions."
Burnside said Marshall officials gather reports about Thundering Herd sports in newspapers and on websites. Then they calculate how much it would have cost to pay for that much exposure by buying advertisements. Last year, Burnside said, that cost would have exceeded $40 million.
And that buzz, he said, translates into students.
"I think there is a correlation there, that name recognition causes young people to look into your institution," Burnside said.
Burnside also said there are fixed costs involved in running an athletic program such as maintaining facilities and buying equipment. Smaller schools like Marshall must spread out those expenses among fewer students. Marshall has about 14,000 students, while WVU has about 29,000.
Burnside said Marshall is now working to rely less on revenue from students.
New Athletic Director Mike Hamrick is putting a new emphasis on fundraising and building attendance at football and basketball games.
"We're all striving to be better and be as self-supporting as possible," Burnside said.
Another big disadvantage for Marshall is that it is in Conference USA, which doesn't have an automatic bid in the football Bowl Championship Series. WVU is in the Big East Conference, which has an automatic bid. Those bids can result in hefty compensation for conferences and their member schools.
WVU, for instance, collected $8 million in tournament, Big East Conference and bowl game money in 2008-09. The university, with its successful basketball and football programs, also made more than $6 million from licensing, advertisements and sponsorships.
Marshall netted $2.6 million from conference and tournament money and about $250,000 from licensing, according to an NCAA financial report.
"If you took Marshall right now and put us in the Big East, we would not need that much money from the university," Burnside said.
The affordability center's numbers show that Marshall is fairly typical in terms of how much it relies on student fees and institutional dollars to subsidize athletics. The average athletic department in C-USA gets 46 percent of its budget from such subsidies.
But, the average student at a conference school sees about $700 of tuition go toward athletics, which is nearly $200 less than at Marshall.
Of the 99 schools the affordability center surveyed in detail, only 13 athletic departments were entirely self-sustaining.
For its part, WVU does better than the Big East average in the relative amount of support it gives its athletic department and in terms of how much it charges it students. The average Big East student pays about $491 a year to subsidize athletic programs.
Narvel Weese, WVU's vice president for administration and finance, said even WVU's relatively low numbers don't take into account the benefit students receive.
The athletic fees the university levies amount to about $3.9 million all told. But, Weese added, students get in free at football and basketball games. Those seats would cost $4.9 million if students were charged for them.
Besides the athletic fee, Weese said WVU's athletic department receives $100,000 from the state for its rifle team and about $100,000 for a federal work study program.
For the colleges that spend a lot to subsidize their athletic programs, the researchers from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity say something should be done to "disarm" the arms race in athletic departments.
They think having the federal government stepping in might make things too political.
But we would see no harm in state governments forbidding institutions receiving state funds to subsidize (athletics) more than, say, 5 percent of tuition revenues, or two percent of all core expenditures," they wrote.
They added, "As universities become increasingly squeezed financially, particularly at schools where students are themselves hard pressed to pay their bills, the need for some sort of action is real and growing."
hailwv.com/2010/06/07/moo-u-students-should-demand-a-refund/
Marshall students pay heavily to support sports
by Ry Rivard
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Marshall University students pay about $890 a year, or nearly a fifth of what tuition costs, to support the university's sports programs.
By contrast, West Virginia University students are required to pay only $157 a year.
In a new report, the Center for College Affordability and Productivity says an arms race in college sports is contributing to increased costs for students.
But, contrary to popular belief, the costs are being felt most by students at smaller schools with less prestigious athletic programs, according to the Washington-based think tank.
Athletic programs at bigger schools in top conferences are able to pick up more revenue from ticket sales, licensing fees and TV deals. In smaller conferences, students and taxpayers are being asked to pick up a larger share of the tab for sports programs.
In West Virginia, the difference between the "haves" and the "have nots" is illustrated by WVU and Marshall, said Matthew Denhart, one of the report's authors.
In an e-mail, Dehart provided figures that came from federal financial records and an analysis of athletic department budgets compiled by USA Today.
Marshall spent about $24 million on athletics last year. About $12.8 million was in subsidies from either student fees or directly or indirectly from institutional monies that are ultimately made up in part by taxpayer dollars, according to the center.
At WVU, student fees and taxpayer dollars amounted to just under 8 percent of the athletic department's $55 million budget in 2008-09.
At Marshall, about $890 a year from each student's tuition went toward funding college sports. In-state undergraduate tuition is about $5,200 a year.
Looking at the money Marshall sends from its university side to its athletic department, about 19 percent of its overall tuition revenue goes to fund sports, according to the center's data.
In other words, if Marshall eliminated its fees for the athletic department, it could cut student tuition by nearly a fifth. But then, its athletic department would lose about half the money it uses to operate each year.
Marshall officials were unable to precisely replicate the figures provided by the Denhart's organization. However, assistant athletic director for media relations Randy Burnside said the numbers were "probable."
"Rich, famous and athletically well-known schools have only been trivially impacted at the institutional level by the explosion in intercollegiate athletic costs, while a significant number of schools that are, on average, poorer, less prestigious, and athletically more marginal have been clobbered," Denhart and Richard Vedder said in the center's report. "We can say that athletic subsidies are a tax on other revenues, a tax diverting resources from traditional academic purposes, and this tax is highly regressive, hitting the poor more than the rich."
Burnside said the think tank's arguments miss the mark by ignoring the importance of college sports, which bring in a diverse student body and are a "part of the college experience."
Burnside also said the numbers don't tell the whole story.
"I think athletics more than pays for itself in the exposure it gives the institution on a national basis," he said. "That value, which this report totally ignores, is huge, even to the smaller institutions."
Burnside said Marshall officials gather reports about Thundering Herd sports in newspapers and on websites. Then they calculate how much it would have cost to pay for that much exposure by buying advertisements. Last year, Burnside said, that cost would have exceeded $40 million.
And that buzz, he said, translates into students.
"I think there is a correlation there, that name recognition causes young people to look into your institution," Burnside said.
Burnside also said there are fixed costs involved in running an athletic program such as maintaining facilities and buying equipment. Smaller schools like Marshall must spread out those expenses among fewer students. Marshall has about 14,000 students, while WVU has about 29,000.
Burnside said Marshall is now working to rely less on revenue from students.
New Athletic Director Mike Hamrick is putting a new emphasis on fundraising and building attendance at football and basketball games.
"We're all striving to be better and be as self-supporting as possible," Burnside said.
Another big disadvantage for Marshall is that it is in Conference USA, which doesn't have an automatic bid in the football Bowl Championship Series. WVU is in the Big East Conference, which has an automatic bid. Those bids can result in hefty compensation for conferences and their member schools.
WVU, for instance, collected $8 million in tournament, Big East Conference and bowl game money in 2008-09. The university, with its successful basketball and football programs, also made more than $6 million from licensing, advertisements and sponsorships.
Marshall netted $2.6 million from conference and tournament money and about $250,000 from licensing, according to an NCAA financial report.
"If you took Marshall right now and put us in the Big East, we would not need that much money from the university," Burnside said.
The affordability center's numbers show that Marshall is fairly typical in terms of how much it relies on student fees and institutional dollars to subsidize athletics. The average athletic department in C-USA gets 46 percent of its budget from such subsidies.
But, the average student at a conference school sees about $700 of tuition go toward athletics, which is nearly $200 less than at Marshall.
Of the 99 schools the affordability center surveyed in detail, only 13 athletic departments were entirely self-sustaining.
For its part, WVU does better than the Big East average in the relative amount of support it gives its athletic department and in terms of how much it charges it students. The average Big East student pays about $491 a year to subsidize athletic programs.
Narvel Weese, WVU's vice president for administration and finance, said even WVU's relatively low numbers don't take into account the benefit students receive.
The athletic fees the university levies amount to about $3.9 million all told. But, Weese added, students get in free at football and basketball games. Those seats would cost $4.9 million if students were charged for them.
Besides the athletic fee, Weese said WVU's athletic department receives $100,000 from the state for its rifle team and about $100,000 for a federal work study program.
For the colleges that spend a lot to subsidize their athletic programs, the researchers from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity say something should be done to "disarm" the arms race in athletic departments.
They think having the federal government stepping in might make things too political.
But we would see no harm in state governments forbidding institutions receiving state funds to subsidize (athletics) more than, say, 5 percent of tuition revenues, or two percent of all core expenditures," they wrote.
They added, "As universities become increasingly squeezed financially, particularly at schools where students are themselves hard pressed to pay their bills, the need for some sort of action is real and growing."
