- Joined
- Dec 8, 2006
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As a life long member of academia, I've seen this issue many many times. I've seen the type of money that can be drawn into the University through programs. Some of the huge, very good schools generate a lot of capital. But where do you think that money goes? You think it goes into a general fund for things to improve the University? Hire more academic professors? Expand research facilities? It doesn't, not on the whole. The vast majority of it is spent on advertising the school and back into the athletics department. Yay...thanks a lot. You know how much money a research lab generates for a University? A good research facility can be on par or even greater than athletics. Maybe not the top tier football/basketball programs; but when 1 professor has over a million dollars in grants and the department has 16 or so research faculty, and there are a hand full of research departments, and the University gets a nice cut; it all adds up. Where does our money go? Well I think bureaucracy eats a bunch. But we expand research facilities, we hire more professors, we offer a more classes in more subjects. The money brought into the physics department doesn't stay just in physics. We help fund other departments like psychology or history or political science; departments which don't really have research means of their own.
The point is, the money comes into academia and is spent on academia. That's not the way with the athletics department, and only the really large schools with already established large programs really reap the benefit of having a football team or basketball team. The rest of the Universities are left with football programs which hemorrhage money. Because for some reason we got it into our heads that every University has to have a football program. Colorado State University football is ****. It's been **** for some time. Yet they keep raising student fees, taking more from the students (hahah...I'm a post doc, so they can't have anymore of my money!) to build indoor practice facilities and brand new weight rooms and this and that, and what we get is a losing team no one cares about, more money owed to the University, and alumni who still don't give a crap about our ****ty football team. And I've tutored a lot of those guys over the years. There were some fairly smart ones, but for many of them I don't know how they got out of high school. Why should some dumbass who can barely read get a degree from the same University as me? A PhD in physics from the same University where Bradlee Van Pelt went to. That guy was in my 121 lab and was absolutely retarded.
University is the highest form of secondary education. It is supposed to be the most academically rigorous, challenging, and diverse education out there. It's primary purpose is education, not sports entertainment. Is it wrong that someone smarter may not get in because someone was a better athlete? Absolutely. This isn't hold your hand while you spread your wings time. University is supposed to be stressful and hard and competitive. I know some people have the perception that it's about stretching out and learning who you are and blah blah blah other hippie garbage, but those people are either psychology or business majors. But we have to water down our education, throw billions of dollars collectively at athletics and making sure top tier athletes sail through? Really? That's LIFE, huh? **** that ****. If you can't do calculus, get out of University. University should be academically challenging, it should represent scholastically the pinnacle of achievement. And entrance into University should be based on academic achievement alone. You can have College, Community College, and Tech College for everything else.
The point is, the money comes into academia and is spent on academia. That's not the way with the athletics department, and only the really large schools with already established large programs really reap the benefit of having a football team or basketball team. The rest of the Universities are left with football programs which hemorrhage money. Because for some reason we got it into our heads that every University has to have a football program. Colorado State University football is ****. It's been **** for some time. Yet they keep raising student fees, taking more from the students (hahah...I'm a post doc, so they can't have anymore of my money!) to build indoor practice facilities and brand new weight rooms and this and that, and what we get is a losing team no one cares about, more money owed to the University, and alumni who still don't give a crap about our ****ty football team. And I've tutored a lot of those guys over the years. There were some fairly smart ones, but for many of them I don't know how they got out of high school. Why should some dumbass who can barely read get a degree from the same University as me? A PhD in physics from the same University where Bradlee Van Pelt went to. That guy was in my 121 lab and was absolutely retarded.
University is the highest form of secondary education. It is supposed to be the most academically rigorous, challenging, and diverse education out there. It's primary purpose is education, not sports entertainment. Is it wrong that someone smarter may not get in because someone was a better athlete? Absolutely. This isn't hold your hand while you spread your wings time. University is supposed to be stressful and hard and competitive. I know some people have the perception that it's about stretching out and learning who you are and blah blah blah other hippie garbage, but those people are either psychology or business majors. But we have to water down our education, throw billions of dollars collectively at athletics and making sure top tier athletes sail through? Really? That's LIFE, huh? **** that ****. If you can't do calculus, get out of University. University should be academically challenging, it should represent scholastically the pinnacle of achievement. And entrance into University should be based on academic achievement alone. You can have College, Community College, and Tech College for everything else.
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