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breezy
December 18th, 2009, 08:28 AM
An interesting story in this morning's Newark Star-Ledger which focuses on Monmouth but discusses the financial aspects of FCS football.

http://www.nj.com/sports/njsports/index.ssf/2009/12/football_championship_subdivis.html

Lehigh Football Nation
December 18th, 2009, 08:56 AM
An interesting story in this morning's Newark Star-Ledger which focuses on Monmouth but discusses the financial aspects of FCS football.

http://www.nj.com/sports/njsports/index.ssf/2009/12/football_championship_subdivis.html

Real good article. The writer reall did her homewoerk and talked to a wide variety of ADs. xthumbsupx


At Monmouth, the Hawks finished 5-6 this season. McNeil wants about 10 more scholarships.

“We do need to get just a bit more skill on the team,” McNeil said. “And you can only do that with scholarships.”

That means more money — a full scholarship costs about $36,000 a year, according to an athletic department spokesman. The department already slashed 5 percent from their operating budget this year, McNeil said. There was a hiring freeze. The school stopped paying to send coaches to development conferences.

For all our kvetching about the need for scholarships, that $36,000 price tag is a big part of the problem that we generally don't talk about. The simple base cost of an education, scholarship or not, is still growing - and it's growing bigger at private schools than public schools. Growing costs AND declining operating budgets - it's a huge challenge.

ronpayne
December 18th, 2009, 09:31 AM
Well written article!

cougarpines
December 18th, 2009, 09:50 AM
I guess I have two questions. First, if the football scolarships are dropped would they be directed elsewhere. If so, there is no net savings to the university. Second, if they are not directed elsewhere, most of that cost is embedded fixed cost such as prof. salaties etc. that won't go away if the 30 are not given out. The only way I see a true savings is if they are at maximum capacity and the 30 players are replaced with paying students.

headdressguy
December 18th, 2009, 10:01 AM
Sometimes I question the way schools measure the costs of scholarships. Do they just figure the cost as tuition + room and board? If so, this could be misleading for a few reasons:

1) Would the football player receiving the scholarship have been replaced by another student if there was no football team?

2) If so, would the income of the school have been full price? Wouldn't the estimated opportunity cost of adding a football player be the foregone income of the student he replaces (meaning, the average price paid by typical students)?

3) If we're talking costs, isn't the marginal cost of adding one more person to the school fairly low? What I mean here is that, how much does it actually cost a school to add one person? Are they hiring more faculty for that person? Are they improving facilities for that one person? Or does that person just add the cost of their food and the water they use to shower?

I'm not sure I've decided what I think the correct metric for scholarship costs is, but I'd like to know how schools calculate it.

EDIT - yeah, kinda what cp said above, just much longer-winded.

UAalum72
December 18th, 2009, 10:21 AM
3) If we're talking costs, isn't the marginal cost of adding one more person to the school fairly low? What I mean here is that, how much does it actually cost a school to add one person?
But with football it's not just one person, it's a hundred, which may be negligible at a 15,000-student university, but 3% or 4% of the student body at a small college.

bostonspider
December 18th, 2009, 10:27 AM
But at many small colleges, the football players bring a much need level of diversity as well, of race, socioecononic means, and life experiences.

headdressguy
December 18th, 2009, 10:28 AM
But with football it's not just one person, it's a hundred, which may be negligible at a 15,000-student university, but 3% or 4% of the student body at a small college.

Well, we're talking scholarship costs, so at this level it's 63, but point taken re: smaller schools. It still doesn't really address the bigger point I was hoping to make, which is that there are a lot of different, defensible ways to measure this cost, and I'm curious to see how schools choose to do so. For example, I bet the president at Hofstra was using whichever metric gave him the biggest number, regardless of whether it was the most accurate one.

Tod
December 18th, 2009, 12:55 PM
Well, we're talking scholarship costs, so at this level it's 63, but point taken re: smaller schools. It still doesn't really address the bigger point I was hoping to make, which is that there are a lot of different, defensible ways to measure this cost, and I'm curious to see how schools choose to do so. For example, I bet the president at Hofstra was using whichever metric gave him the biggest number, regardless of whether it was the most accurate one.

Don't forget about Title IX compliance...

F'N Hawks
December 18th, 2009, 01:01 PM
$36,000 for a scholarship...that is unreal. Up at North Dakota, I believe a full scholarship for football costs the team around $11,000.

Good luck to Monmouth and similar programs, that has to be tough.

GannonFan
December 18th, 2009, 01:15 PM
Sometimes I question the way schools measure the costs of scholarships. Do they just figure the cost as tuition + room and board? If so, this could be misleading for a few reasons:

1) Would the football player receiving the scholarship have been replaced by another student if there was no football team?

2) If so, would the income of the school have been full price? Wouldn't the estimated opportunity cost of adding a football player be the foregone income of the student he replaces (meaning, the average price paid by typical students)?

3) If we're talking costs, isn't the marginal cost of adding one more person to the school fairly low? What I mean here is that, how much does it actually cost a school to add one person? Are they hiring more faculty for that person? Are they improving facilities for that one person? Or does that person just add the cost of their food and the water they use to shower?

I'm not sure I've decided what I think the correct metric for scholarship costs is, but I'd like to know how schools calculate it.

EDIT - yeah, kinda what cp said above, just much longer-winded.

No, those are all good points. It doesn't cost the school the full cost of tuition and room and board to give a scholarship. It's an accounting issue, that's all. A person on scholarship only costs a fraction of what a normal student would end up paying in terms of tuition and room and board. Schools will of course cry poor and say that scholarships are costing them so much money, but that's just another way to entice more fundraising. A player on full scholarship does not cost the school anywhere near the nominal amount of that scholarship.

Bogus Megapardus
December 18th, 2009, 01:17 PM
Up at North Dakota, I believe a full scholarship for football costs the team around $11,000.

At that price, we'll take a couple dozen in the PL, please. Can we have them to go?

Rekdiver
December 18th, 2009, 01:35 PM
Well you can always play FCS no scholarship ball with Davidson, Dayton Jacksonville.......

ur2k
December 18th, 2009, 02:09 PM
Can't these financial arguments be applied to college sports as a whole?

Bogus Megapardus
December 18th, 2009, 02:14 PM
Well you can always play FCS no scholarship ball with Davidson, Dayton Jacksonville.......

We already do play FCS no-scholarship football in the PL. It was just a joke relating to the ongoing dilemma in the PL regarding the cost-effectiveness and propriety of adding . . . oh, never mind. :D

Franks Tanks
December 18th, 2009, 02:23 PM
But at many small colleges, the football players bring a much need level of diversity as well, of race, socioecononic means, and life experiences.

Head Dress Guy is right on. These scholarships truly only cost that amount if the university is accepting a full pay student in place of the scholarship students. Chances are they are not. They are either leaving that spot open, or admitting another student on scholarship or financial aid.

Bostonspider-- also a good point. I made this point a while back regarding Lafayette. Lafayette college has very few minority students overall. The ones we do have however are almost always either members of our sports teams or come through the Posse program. We give tremendous financial aid to qualified inner city kids through the posse program.

So if Lafayette no longer gave athletic aid to football players, our minority population would drop quite a bit. We would therefore trun around and give more aid to minority kids to attract more students.

My point is that this money will be spent on aid either way. Either we spend it on the FB team, or we use it to get more minority students through other programs. The school wont be saving money through aid.