There is always a lot of talk about the subsidies that universities provide to athletics at a number of college programs (including Miami).
The cross subsides provided from athletics to the university are rarely mentioned. This would include transfer pricing revenue from the Athletic Dept back to the school for tuition, fees, etc for scholarship athletes and the tuition and fees that come in from walk-on athletes.
Considering the cross subsides, Altimore’s analysis shows that Miami’s athletic programs is actually subsidizing the school +2.3 million in the '23 fiscal year. It is the only MAC school that is the case. OU is breakeven. CMU is -$12.5 million.
In addition, it should be considered that Athletics is enhancing diversity on campus to a degree that clearly would not be there without the student athletes. It is doubtful that we would have the same number of African-American students (football, basketball scholarship athletes etc.), international students (field hockey, women’s BB etc)
An interesting perspective for those who want to deemphasize athletics at Miami.
It is also interesting that Miami is one of of only four G5 schools to be in a net positive position.
I agree that the analysis surprised me. However, the analytics used is clearly the same for all institutions so It should at least be viewed in that context. That should mean that we are at least better off than some of our MAC and G5 counterparts.
I am not in favor of a direct cut. However, I do think the athletic department should be required to provide a refund based on the number of students attending games. In other words, if student attendance is not there the athletic department should pay.a penalty. There should be an incentive to get students to the games. The Athletic Department should be responsible for putting a product out there or doing the marketing so that students attend the games they are paying for. If they are not attending then some of the money should be returned to the general university coffers.
I love this idea. AD needs more pressure. We have majors being phased out and entire departments being closed at Miami (e.g., the Department of Comparative Religion is gone) because students are not interested in their products/services. Why not put similar pressure on Athletics? Some faculty members are going to high school these days to promote their majors, a job that used to be done by advisors only. What is the AD doing to promote their product and increase “enrollment” (i.e., interest)?
The only exception I ever experienced at Miami was Jack Owens calling me out of nowhere to discuss attendance issues and brainstorm ideas. I wish we, the faculty, would at least receive reminders about the games.
It’s an interesting way to look at the subsidy system rather than the usual tired (and in my opinion flawed) tropes about “Flutie Effects” and “front porches.”
What I wonder is would there be any difference if all those athletic scholarship spots that generate tuition just went to regular students. That would seemingly drive just as much revenue for the academic side without needing tens of millions a year in subsidies to prop up the athletic infrastructure to bring the athletes to campus.
Regarding the closed majors, what are your thoughts on Miami offering area study majors? Was it a mistake in the first place that’s now being corrected?
Students have the option of attending schools which do not offer athletics or other various activities. Students who choose Miami are choosing a school with all the traditional activities and opportunities associated with a traditional college education. They are perfectly free to go to a less costly form of college education. They can even live in their Mom’s basement and get their degree online.
I most definitely chose Miami because of all it offers and wanted no part of a school which did not have all the bells and whistles. I think so did everybody else.
I don’t believe it was a mistake. A few of these programs still have a robust demand (e.g., political science is the 11th most popular major at Miami). However, as society demands/expects universities to be more vocational in nature, several area/regional studies are just not as appealing to students as they used to be. The question then is: Who is going to subsidize these programs at Miami? Not the government (it only pays for 9% of our bills). A few years ago, Miami moved to a centralized budget model, which allowed it to transfer money indirectly from wealthier divisions to struggling ones. The biggest problem is that there is only one profitable division at Miami right now (FSB). To put it in perspective, the FSB’s profit is approximately equal to the total losses of the Regional campuses combined and half of the loss experienced by CAS.
Long story short, there is nobody to subsidize programs generating low revenue anymore, and tough decisions are being made.
Just adding a bit more to the discussion, I guess the vast majority of Miami students have no clue how much of their money goes to athletics because it is not spelled out. They pay $2,973.60 every year in general fees, which covers “Student Health Service Center, Recreational Sports Center, Goggin Ice Center, Student Organizations, Scholastic Club Sports, Lectures and Artists, Music Organizations, Intercollegiate Athletics and Other Student Activities.”
To understand how much of that money goes to ICA, one has to dissect Miami’s budget. Here is some relevant info:
The brown chunck is the total General Fee ($34,997,385). Of that money, 36%, or $17,621,950, goes to athletics, which equates to approximately 1,070.50 per student every year.
I should have been more clear. I absolutely believe that Miami should have a strong and well funded Arts & Sciences college and should never neglect or cut majors like Political Science, History or Philosophy.
My doubt is about offering something like an area studies major and whether we ever had the depth and breadth of resources to do that properly. We don’t even have a Russian language major and don’t offer any courses in other Eastern European languages, so I have to wonder how “quality” that major was and whether that might be the reason behind its low enrollment. One would think Miami would have built up a proper slavic languages and literature department first.
Interesting you mention Owens talking to you about that. I never really saw him or his staff engage with students before/after games. Given, I only saw him for a year before he got the axe. Regardless, a few games into the Steele era, Coach Richburg approached my friends and I trying to get us out to a practice. We can now drop in whenever and have a pretty good relationship with the staff. They’ve been brainstorming a decent amount and even though there haven’t been too many changes, I respect the efforts to deviate from the seemingly formulaic approach some people take
