How can you say that we're doing things the right way when we have to subsidize the athletic department with millions of dollars every year.  At the same time, between 2005 and 2011, we've gone from academic spending that was above the MAC and FBS median to slipping below both.  Athletic spending went up over 100% during that time--funded by subsidies--while academic spending went up only 8%, which if you adjust for inflation is actually a net decline.

Where is the benefit to these tens of millions of dollars dumped into the athletic department over the last eight years?  Some say we're attracting better students because of it, but I've shown you that our freshman class profiles have been essentially stagnant since 2005.  Others say that we've attracted more applicants.  Applications are up, but so are Ohio high school graduates as those increases coincide directly with the peak of the baby boom "echo" graduating from high school.  What do you think is driving those applications?  A clearly defined and proven demographic trend or a highly debatable and suspect "Flutie effect?"

Say what you want about the school up the road, but that monstrosity of an athletic department funds itself and doesn't drain money either from the academic side of the university budget or from the students in the form of direct fees.
 

So, where's the deal at O$U?  2013/14 Tuition and FEES

OHIO=         $10,380

Ohio State=   $10,010

How much do students at O$U pay to watch their team?  Do they get the best seats?  Do they ever get to use any of the athletic  facilities for free?  (Can they skate for nothing as at Byrd?)  How much are the students at O$U paying to go to the bowl this season?

Just because O$U fully funds all the athletics and do not use student fees does not mean the bottom line is a better deal for Buckeye Students.

Am I missing something on the academic side that O$U does better than OHIO on a cost basis, ie more research dollars per capita?



 

As the father of a high school junior deciding on where he's going to apply, I can tell you that sticker price is only the beginning of the cost equation.  OSU devotes a ton of money towards merit scholarships, which is why they're ranked pretty high on the annual best value list.  Miami is on there too.  The chart shows that, after aid, the sticker price at OSU and Miami with room and board is almost cut in half.  Is Ohio competitive with that?  I'd be very interested to find out because I can't find those figures anywhere on Ohio's website.  Ohio might be able to get on the list if they channeled all that athletic subsidy towards scholarships. 

As for paying to watch their team, who cares.  Those to whom it's important will pay, but nobody is required to buy tickets.  Football doesn't matter to you?  Great, you're not required to support it.  Hell, OSU could easily take those tickets and sell them at double the price to alumni or t-shirt fans.  As for using facilities, I have zero knowledge nor do I care.  I'm less interested in how things work up the road than with how they work at Ohio.  And we have a dysfunctional system where academic spending isn't even keeping up with inflation and athletic spending--subsidized by academics and students--is completely out of control.

 

Average amount of Institutional Aid (they break down all govt. forms of aid seperately).

Ohio--$3,588

Miami--$5,702 (+59%)

OSU--$6,075 (+69%)

And taking a spin around Ohio for comparison's sake, we find:

Toledo--$4703

Bowling Green--$4,410

Akron--$5,152

Cincinnati--$5,471

Kent State--$3,850

Dead last among all the residential public universities in Ohio.  People, please don't take Rodney at his word.  He talks a good game, but if you dig into the actual data underlying where he's taken Ohio, he is a complete disaster who will undo a generation of university progress if given the chance.

Meanwhile, we're subsidizing the athletic department almost $20 million/year.

 

 

You sound like an OSU t-shirt fan.  Sports are all that matter.  The most fiscally responsible department in the country?  Are you stoned.  In what Bizarro World is a department that is $20 million dollars in the red and needing an annual bailout from the university to balance its books, "fiscally responsible."  The reality is that whatever Ohio University has accomplished in football and basketball it has come at a huge cost and at a time when the university is largely stagnant on so many other much more important fronts where that $20M could do so much more good.

 

Ohio University's overall budget (and that's everything: med school and branch campuses) is 707,603,000.  The budget for the Athens campus is $571,373,000.  This is against an athletic budget of $25,470,296 and institutional subsidies and student fee subsidies of $19,576,760.

Now, I'm gonna sit down at Granny's kitchen table and do some cypherin'  Hopefully, I remember to carry my aught.  What I get is that the athletic department budget of $25,470,296 actually amounts to 3.6% of the entire (med school and branch campuses) budget.  Hell, the subsidy alone is over 2.8% of that budget.  But what I really feel is applicable is its relationship to the Athens campus budget where it is 4.5%--over twice your number.  The subsidy alone is 3.4%.

In a perfect world, where the university wasn't being starved for cash in many of its core missions, I wouldn't care about the subsidy.  We don't live in that perfect world, and choices need to be made as to where to allocate funds.  In that world, the subsidy is an inefficient waste of money and could be spent in much more effective ways to make Ohio a better university and one more attractive to top students and faculty.

 

Actually, I can't stand Vedder.  See my broken clock analogy above.  I think he uses some broadly popular notions and issues that I think are legitimate areas of debate (tuition increasing well beyond the rate of inflation, athletic subsidies) to promote an agenda that I find abhorrent (ending all student aid and essentially gutting the concept of public higher education).  I'm no fan of the man at all.  I think he's disingenuous at best and more likely a hack to be honest.

As for the post above yours, I think a rational basis for athletic subsidies (and I'm off the cuff here) would be say no more than 25% of the athletic department's budget (currently 77% at Ohio) and no more than 1% of the university's budget (currently 2.8% or 3.4% based upon whether one looks at the university's overall budget or just that for main campus).  

That would free up roughly 15 million dollars that could be used for merit scholarships.  That would fund 70 full scholarships with room and board for in-state students every year.  You want to close the gap with Miami and OSU for student recruitment, that's how you do it, not by pouring more money down the rabbit hole of athletics in the hope that some highly debatable "Flutie Effect" comes to pass.  Again, I became involved in this debate in response to posts that were stating we were attracting much better students that before our recent athletic success and that those (illusory) gains were somehow linked to athletics.