In forty states, a basketball or football coach at a public university is the highest-paid public employee (ESPN).
I recall the first of my ten modest proposals to improve higher education:
Goodbye to Big Sports. The NBA and NFL can subsidize their own farm systems. Convert the money that supported Big Sports into increased adjunct pay, new tenure-track positions, increased academic support services, and need-based scholarships. Current players retain their scholarships.A related post
Income disparity in higher ed
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This may not be the most most horrifying story I've read this week, but somehow I find it the most depressing. Bread and circuses (but I think the bread part is out of fashion).
And the only country in the world where higher ed has such a sports apparatus.
At the small liberal arts college where I teach, the administration is coping with low enrollment and the results of some bad decisions in two ways: 1) they are firing both tenured and continent faculty, and 2) they are adding three new sports--men's and women's lacrosse and men's volleyball. This braintrust is evidently unfamiliar with the first law of hole digging. Sorry to pile on, Chris, but I agree that news like this is awfully depressing.
And every new sport means coaches, trainers, budgets for equipment and travel. But I guess the sports might lure some student to campus — “Wait — you mean you have both men’s AND women’s lacrosse teams? I’m sold!”
At a campus you and I know well, Stefan, eSports (sic ) are a recent addition, with computer equipment, special chairs, scholarships, and three advisors. Meanwhile, faculty are cautioned about too much xeroxing for their classes.
Minnesota just won a bowl game for the first time in eons and now I get to hear people talk about how the coach is worth that highest-in-the-state salary. He's going to be paid $4.6 million in 2020.
I should note: a minor bowl game.
Uh, go Gophers? With big sports and health care, the U.S. stands weirdly alone.
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