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11.21.2011

Is college football to blame for sky-high tuition?

Some sobering facts:

  • Collectively college football made more than a $1.1 billion profit last year 
  • The average college football coach's salary at top schools is over $1.47 million dollars a year
  • The college graduation rate is 38% -- with most dropouts citing money as the cause
  • Between 1998 and 2008, tuition and fees for a public school increased by nearly 130 percent, while income for the middle class has pretty much been frozen
How can it be that college football generates so much revenue but tuition continues to soar? We are so drunk on college football -- literally and figuratively -- that we think this is normal. Something needs to change. 


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4 comments:

  1. GO GREEEN! lol, I kid. That is interesting. Mott is making a killing with the influx of students. They've done a ton of renovations since the student migration from GM. New Alumni Center and banquet hall and added a bunch of outside tables. They need to do a lot more, but its nice to know that the Alumni are thought of at least lol

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  2. I'd want to know the breakdown of football revenue vs cost. I'm sure that it would be different for non-BCS schools vs. BCS schools, but I would imagine that the programs make the school money in a variety of ways for the bigger programs. It may be more important to ask "Are Water Polo, Gymnastics, Wrestling, Women's Basketball, Tennis, Swimming & Diving, etc.. to blame for higher tuition?"

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  3. It's impossible to separate the money in football from the school's general source of funding. So therefore it is impossible to assess the true effect it has on things like tuition. That's the real catch 22 hear.

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  4. It's interesting how the smaller schools even benefit from the big football programs. Big Ten schools, for example pay huge sums to play MAC teams.

    Also, Brian Kelly won big at my alma mater Central Michigan before a stop at Cinci on his way to ND. Broke hearts of fans every time he left, not that he's to blame.

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