north jersey.com (bergen record) on the expense of tutoring RU athletes
- Thread starter wheezer
- Start date
The article is mostly bullshit.
This is broad statement and I am pretty sure, for Rutgers, this is not accurate. but the way it is written makes it seem that this is the case.
"A survey by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2008 found that more than half of the scholarship students at Rutgers were special admits, as were those at the University of Georgia, the University of Wisconsin, Clemson University, UCLA, Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University."
This is broad statement and I am pretty sure, for Rutgers, this is not accurate. but the way it is written makes it seem that this is the case.
"A survey by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2008 found that more than half of the scholarship students at Rutgers were special admits, as were those at the University of Georgia, the University of Wisconsin, Clemson University, UCLA, Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University."
The KEY statement is" that is on a par with other Div I schools" .Not much positive since Aditi left.Really liked her stuff about RU.
What purpose does this article serve by appearing in the paper today? Is it allow news cycle? Could the Record be upset the Star Ledger has fallen off the trail in ripping Rutgers a new periodically? Or is this typical northeast yellow journalism tryin for a mythical prize as one of the better news organizations? The current rags in the northeast are like *sshole, everyone has one and they all stink.:chairshot:
---------
no doubt.... and you would think that the article could stay on topic, but no, it lapses into the poor season RU had in football last year, the Flood
suspension....even the individual game results this year in basketball....... what does each of those things have to do with tutoring?
football and basketball players should get as much tutoring they need because they have to sacrifice so much time to the sport..... non athletes have the advantage of more free time......
I didn't bother reading it so forgive me if the article had some redeeming value. But why post this crap here?
-----------
because it is relevant to the program, and articles like this are read by thousands of NJ residents.... we could ignore it, but your neighbor could be reading it and come out thinking worse about our school, and program.
it also seems to be a bit of reverting back to attack mode for the newspapers, after that short honeymoon.... worth noting.
The S-L's article on subsidy yesterday neglected to point out that total football expenditures in 2014 were $19M and total football revenues were $21m.
One of the other things that these articles fail to point out is that in the category of "Direct Institutional Support", so frequently quoted for 2014 as "$36 million", $9 million of that came from the Big 10 conference. Only $26 million came from the state of NJ and the University (the numbers don't match because the "direct institutional support" number is actually much closer to $35 million than $36 million).
I don't disagree with you but all you did was get the Record a few more clicks which gives them incentive to write more bullshit articles about RU. The better strategy is to ignore them. If you don't agree with it bombard them with comments that contain facts favorable to RU.
----------
we will then disagree as to if it should be posted.... I understand your viewpoint and respect that point of view also
- The “special admits” term is not well defined & appears as though it is being tossed around in some sensationalized way to fit a point of view - - what does it really mean? bear in mind that there are NCAA academic eligibility requirements that must be met - so you can't really have a C- / D+ ( a 1.3 - 1.7 GPA ) high school average and brain dead SAT scores and get some mythical "special admit" .... not without ultimately getting a visit from the NCAA compliance department.
- In many schools, a coach can recruit an athlete - and as long as the athlete falls in the middle 50% of the profile, the coach can say 'I want them admitted' - and they are in - - so the kid was legitimately in the range - but if they had simple gone regular admissions they might or might not have gotten in ..... or maybe the school wants 3 years of a language & the kid needs special consideration because he only has 1 year - - in many places, having the coach designate the kid as desired for admission can count as a 'special admission' ....
- Every muckraking reporter covering college sports imagines that there is some pile of athletes who can't read or write and can't do basic math who are being carried through college via some vast conspiracy .... and when the can't find those athletes they write nebulous poorly supported conjecture filled stories like this
Last edited:
To me, it's money WELL spent. Whenever former Rutgers players from any sport are interviewed on TV, they almost always come off as well spoken, intelligent, individuals. These writers NEVER see the big picture,never. These players are ambassadors for the school, showing if athletes can graduate and be great students, then regular under grads without the demands of D1 sports, can also get a great education at Rutgers, and set themselves up for life.
Huh? Conference distributions aren't part of direct institutional support. Neither are state funds. (Though you could make the argument that since state appropriations make up 17% of Rutgers' budget, then 17% of athletics direct institutional support comes from those state appropriations.)
Huh? You should never speak of UNC and Rutgers academics for athletes in the same sentence. OK, not that is clear I'm not sure what you're saying?
I was thinking the same thing. This is where someone else reads this and comes away with the wrong info and spreads it as fact. Btw, does anyone know if donations are included? It seems every time this topic comes up donations inclusion is fuzzy.
So if we didn't spend the money had a low APR, The rags would write about how RU ignores the atheletes academic needs and doesnt prepare them for life.....I take this lame attempt at creating controversy and laugh at it.
Last edited:
I read the article & found it very informative & quite balanced. I believe this is called journalism & is a function of the press.
I didn't say that the B1G money was "direct institutional support." In fact, I said quite the opposite of that. What I said is that the 36 million quoted by the media as "subsidy" includes, in reality, two numbers:
Also, you're wrong (see italics).
Direct Institutional Support: $26,001,347 - - Include value of institutional resources for the current operations of intercollegiate athletics, as well as all unrestricted funds allocated to the athletics department by the university (e.g. state funds, tuition, tuition waivers, and transfers). Also inculde Federal Work Study support for student workers employed by athletics. Report actual amounts and do not net with Transfers to Institution (Category 37).
NCAA / Conference Distributions: $9,269,466 - - Include revenue received from bowl games, tournaments and all NCAA distributions. This category includes amounts received for direct participation in or through a sharing agreement with an athletics conference, including shares of conference television agreements.
Additionally, just to give those who might read this some more understanding about what the reported subsidy means (and what it doesn't), if we have, say, 500 athletes on scholarship, and the average tuition for each of these scholarship athletes is $20k/year, that amounts to $10mm/year. This number is included in the reported subsidy, but isn't an actual expense, since it is a reported number akin to an "in kind" gift, for which no money changes hands but a service is rendered. There is additional inventory of desks in each classroom since classes are rarely full, and it costs the university nothing for an additional student-athlete to sit in on a class. The problem with the perception of the reported subsidy is that it appears a check is being written from the university to the athletics department for $36mm, and when the numbers are broken down, the actual subsidy to the athletics department is far less than what it appears. And when that (actual) number is written as a function of overall university budget, Rutgers having one of the highest budgets in the country, it is a relatively small number.
Rutgers Athletics is in a growth phase, and growth costs money, money which many other programs have already spent since they took athletics more seriously sooner than we did. But they spent money to do it. When the B1G money kicks in, coupled with greater on-field success and consequent donations, the athletics department will be in the black (football and men's basketball already make money, BTW--it's the other sports that lose money). The numbers that will eventually show profit are actual numbers, meaning that when there is a profit, there is an actual surplus of money, and the surplus is greater than what will be reported due to the inherent subtraction of the in-kind scholarship money.
And then there's the accounting for the $6mm/year pay down of the stadium expansion....
Parenthetically, there's an additional way in which Rutgers screws itself with regard to financial reporting.
There is no NCAA guideline which specifically requires a school to report the cost of athletic scholarships as either "in state" or "out of state" (as, indeed, most private colleges and universities don't have such things). Many large, state schools will automatically compute the value of an athlete's full grant-in-aid as "in state".
Rutgers does not. It computes the value of its athletic grants in aid as either "in state" or "out of state" depending upon the origin of the athlete.
The average scholarship amount for the football team, therefore, is reported in 2014 as just over $36,000.
There is no NCAA guideline which specifically requires a school to report the cost of athletic scholarships as either "in state" or "out of state" (as, indeed, most private colleges and universities don't have such things). Many large, state schools will automatically compute the value of an athlete's full grant-in-aid as "in state".
Rutgers does not. It computes the value of its athletic grants in aid as either "in state" or "out of state" depending upon the origin of the athlete.
The average scholarship amount for the football team, therefore, is reported in 2014 as just over $36,000.
Right, but as it has been explained to me, and what I've read, it isn't an expense for which money changes hands. The way it could be an expense for which the university loses or spends money is if additional classes are added to accommodate the athletes or if otherwise paying students (e.g., non-athletes) are denied admission to the university to accommodate the student-athletes. The IRS (and apparently, the NCAA) require in-kind gifts to be reported as an expense (or a permitted deduction of income, in the case of the IRS), and that's the confusing part. There are expenses such as, say, new uniforms or team travel, for which money exits the university. Scholarships may have a value of $20k/year assigned to them, but money isn't spent to allow the students in the classroom.
If this is wrong, I'd love to know (lurkers from the RU finance office, this means you!).
It's the total cost of "full grant in aid", which is very slightly (a couple thousand dollars) less than "total cost of attendance". There are no instructions on the form as the the computational difference between those two things.
As for your prior post, the NCAA doesn't care about such hair-splitting. The reality is that athletic scholarships are a specific expense line item for the athletic department as reported to the NCAA. How the school handles the cost of an athletic scholarship outside of that, for tax purposes or otherwise, is not part of this discussion.
Which is my point, since the typical fan doesn't know that such hair-splitting exists vis-a-vis reported subsidies. When the Ledger or Bergen Record reports a $36mm subsidy, most folks assume that it's actual money changing hands, when a large portion is the equivalent of a gift-in-kind. (I know you know this, just putting it out there for others so they have a fuller perspective--which assumes I'm right, of course.)
Case working its way up to Supreme Court right now also is about "special admits". It relates to affirmative action. This should not be an issue, if you truly believe in diversity because without special admits, regardless of how defined, you would be a homogeneous institution. That seems to defeat one of the pillars of higher learning - diverse perspectives and views. I'll give the write the benefit of the doubt that they thought of this, but I'm fairly certain newspaper editors are idiots so no benefit of doubt there. Their job is to sensationalize and sell.
Gotcha.
I think the 2 numbers included in most media reports of the subsidy are direct institutional support (~$26MM) and student fees (~$10MM). I'm not aware of any media reports that include conference distributions in the subsidy.
Also, my point about state funds is that there is a separate category for direct state support. State funding is part of Direct Institutional Support only as far as state funds are part of the unrestricted university budget, which I noted is a maximum of 17% (and in reality is much less, as most state funds are not unrestricted, and therefore don't go to athletics). My point being that when someone complains about their tax dollars supporting Rutgers Athletics, it is a fairly negligible amount (which works out at most to a couple of pennies per person).
This is an important point. There is pretty much zero marginal cost in educating an additional student. So the tuition portion of scholarship money is really just an offset of institutional support. So once the scholarship money is taken into account, many universities see a net gain from Athletics, even if the books show an athletic subsidy.
Yes, stated that way, it's a very good point.
You could make the argument - and I think it would be reasonable to do so - that the Expense side of the ledger shouldn't reflect the "retail value" of an athletic scholarship, but rather the actual cost to the university of student attendance. As you point out, this is a pretty marginal number - especially for a school that operates on the scale of a Rutgers, OSU, Michigan, etc.
This is probably true, and other accounting factors, such as facilities upgrades, which some universities keep on the Buildings and Grounds books and others, such as Rutgers (unless we changed it in the last year), keep these expenses on the Athletics Department's books. From what I can tell, most or all athletics departments want to show as little profitability as possible in order to keep the safety net of the university coffers at their disposal, should they ever need them. They don't want to show a loss, either, so the goal for the accountants, from what I've read and what I've guessed, appears to be to show a revenue-neutral bottom line.
Last edited:
--------------
I don't think that discussing the cost of tutoring is balanced out by discussing a football scandal, and results on the basketball court.
balance would be, money spent on tutoring, and then examining the results of that money spent.... do the player/students wind up with good grades as a result, do they stay in school....can you attribute that extra money spent on them doing well after graduation....
