(06-19-2018 06:31 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(06-19-2018 05:56 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-19-2018 05:16 PM)Wedge Wrote:  

(06-19-2018 01:21 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-19-2018 12:11 PM)Wedge Wrote:  The cost is not zero, so just wiping that item off of the "expense" column isn't the correct answer, either. Attributing it as merely an incremental cost is also not correct.

Each university with decent accounting should have, internally and not for public consumption, dollar amounts that they attribute to the cost of administering undergraduate education (i.e., not including graduate courses and not including research). The precise amount to charge for each athletic scholarship should be that dollar amount divided by the total number of full-time undergraduates, plus the cost of room and board that is charged to each non-scholarship student living on campus.

And there are other real expenses that most schools don't charge the athletic department for at all -- they don't charge the athletic department for renting space in buildings on campus, they don't charge for utilities, they don't charge a portion of campus security costs. There are other expenses where some schools bear the cost and others require the athletic department to pay, e.g., campus security on game day, cleaning up the stadium/arena and campus after the game, etc.

Actually they do. Athletics will see an allocated costs on all such items. Every department on the university shares in that expense. Additionally, many buildings that are only used for athletics are encumbered by debt- That type of debt expense is typically borne completely by the athletic department.

As for scholarships---my point was simply that much or all of that 20 million subsidy is immediately returned to the school for scholarships. So, it never really leaves the campus. Lets be realistic---the incremental cost of adding a kid to an existing class is essentially zero. So the tuition portion of the scholarship represents a negligible cost. However, significant portion of the scholarship cost is real (housing, food, books, FCOA, etc). That portion of those costs is a very real very tangible expense.

The athletic department should pay an allocated cost of rent, utilities, etc., but not all schools do that; at schools that don't, it amounts to an off-the-books subsidy.

Each student's tuition isn't a negligible cost, it's a shared portion of a large communal cost that should be allocated equally among all students.

Also, if an academic department on campus gives out a full scholarship -- say, a star musician gets a full ride to attend School X -- the university charges the school of music the "sticker price", too. It's not just the athletic department, and it's not just pretending that money changes hands. If that music scholarship is funded by an endowment, for example, the endowment administrator has to actually send the money to the university's general fund. Which is what the athletic department should be doing, i.e., they should have to compensate the general fund for a scholarship in the same way that any academic department would.

You are talking about two different things. The "average" cost per student is not the same as the incremental cost for the next student added. In a scholarship situation, only the incremental cost of adding the next student falls all the way to the bottom line. All the other costs involved in educating that additional student were going to be paid whether that extra student is added or not.

You are using the concept of incremental cost to try to get the athletic department out of paying what others would have to pay. I don't agree with that. The fair way to allocate the cost of educating undergraduates is to divide the total cost by the number of all undergraduates, not just by the number of undergraduates who actually pay their own tuition.

I’m not trying to get the athletic department out of anything. I’m saying the budget/cost of athletic subsidies is overstated. It’s like bowl payouts that pay half the so called "million dollar payout" in tickets that will never be sold at their stated "value".