Our Views: A subsidy that stings

Welcome to LSU, where the value of your education is determined by the football team’s success. That was the sardonic beginning of an editorial in The Daily Reveille, LSU’s student newspaper.

“That great professor recruited from an Ivy League school? You can thank quarterback Zach Mettenberger for him. The new beakers in your chemistry lab? Props to defensive end Sam Montgomery for those. Don’t forget about the money you now have to do research overseas, courtesy of wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.”

The occasion for this inspired bit of mockery? The annual subsidy agreed to by the LSU Athletic Department, which formalizes the catch-as-catch-can policy — no pun intended — by which athletics contribute to the academic side of the university.

The big wins of the football team in recent years have made the athletic department flush just as the big budget cuts by the Legislature and Gov. Bobby Jindal have slammed the university’s academic prospects.

There are good business reasons for the “transfer policy” to be formalized: Both the university and its athletic department can now budget based on the five-year plan of $7.2 million each year. Plus, a cut of any surpluses that might occur ­— and we certainly hope that national championships in football or baseball, the big money producers lately, will provide those.

But the Reveille’s editorial is exactly on point: This is no way to run a university. Not for the long term.

The team might not be winning every year, and those prized television revenues and post-season games might not occur. While athletics can contribute, the academic side ought to be better supported by the state. That the athletic teams’ largesse is needed is unfortunate, not an occasion for celebration.

We agree with the Reveille: “It’s time for Louisiana to demand that higher education is prioritized, for the sake of the university’s academic reputation, and for the sake of other higher educational institutions in the state that don’t have athletics departments that regularly bring in millions of dollars.”

Comments

1) Comment by bourbon-soda - 16/09/2012

Straw man. Of course the other workers earn their money. No one said they didn't. Division of labor, a basis of civilization.

2) Comment by Bouncer - 16/09/2012

@Loki....of course that's what he's implying, but he doesn't have the guts to say it outright. To do so would betray the anti-education and anti-intellectual mindset of the typical Louisianan. They try to hide their contempt for education by paying lip service to the "importance" of it, but they ultimately cannot hide their scorn for anything resembling a life of the intellect. Note the inane comment that another poster of like mind made about "eggheads" that "have a vested interest in more of the same status quo that produces graduates like those of the "top ten" universities." That ridiculous comment summarizes the anti-intellectual attitude and ethos that pervades this state.

3) Comment by Loki - 16/09/2012

You saying teachers and researchers, groundskeepers and accountants don't earn their wages?

4) Comment by bourbon-soda - 16/09/2012

You mean people who are too fine to be grateful for money from people that earn it?

5) Comment by [e-mail] - 16/09/2012

An interesting point, i.e. who rates these universities as to which is best, and what drives their opinion making process? Hmm, could it be that these eggheads have a vested interest in more of the same status quo that produces graduates like those of the "top ten" universities?

6) Comment by bourbon-soda - 16/09/2012

Or check out The Rise of Gridiron University by Brian M. Ingrassia. You can read most of it if you register at amazon.com.

7) Comment by bourbon-soda - 16/09/2012

All the interested reader has to do is google the institution's name and football history. Most of them were football powers at one time, and those are just the successful football factories. There were also unsuccessful football factories.

8) Comment by Bouncer - 16/09/2012

@SuzanneMS.....it's not deliberate. He can't help it. That Louisiana education and mindset of his is showing.....and it ain't pretty.

9) Comment by SuzanneMS - 16/09/2012

I'm not sure whether your ignorance is deliberate, bourbon-soda, but those are the top 10 universities in this country, according to US News and World Report. They are all universities. Not a single one of them was ever a "football factory." And several of them existed before football was invented. Now, name the universities you are talking about -- if you are able. Or admit that you just made it up. As for imagining LSU without football, I do it every single day.

10) Comment by bourbon-soda - 16/09/2012

If you want someone to hate you, give him something. The wieners and whiners hate football because of what it has given the university. To the extent they are separable, LSU owes more to football than football owes to LSU. In particular, football subsidizes the white-girl sports scholarships mandated by Title IX. Football is also despised because it is the only barrier to complete wussification of American education. Everyone on the payroll at LSU should kiss the ground of the football part of the athletic department every day. Imagine LSU without football. You can't do it.

11) Comment by InPVille - 16/09/2012

According to the pdf file available here: http://www.cbpp.org/files/3-13-08sfp.pdf from The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities only Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Delaware, Alaska, and the District of Columbia have NOT made cuts to Higher Education. The other 43 states(or 86% of the states) have determined that it was necessary to cut this spending during the current economic downturn. A number of the 14% of states which have managed not to cut higher education have cut the state workforce, education in K - 12, or services to the Elderly and/or the Disabled. Even states which have seen major tax increases such as California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin have had to cut spending on Higher Education. -[**]- Thirty one states have cut funding for Public Health. Twenty Nine states have cut spending to the Elderly/Disabled. Thirty four states and DC have cut K-12 Education spending. Forty four states and DC have trimmed the State/Governmental Workforce. -[**]- Budget shortfalls are predicted to continue in the coming years. Federal Fiscal relief is largely exhausted. -[**]- So the evidence seems to point to the fact that while The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, chem, ex-louisianian and others think that the wisest course is to spend money you do not have, it is a distinctly minority opinion. At least the LSU Athletic Department is financially able to do something to mitigate some of the funding loss. Not all states have even this option.

12) Comment by dmr0601 - 15/09/2012

Do people in Baton Rouge even know that LSU is a university?

13) Comment by bourbon-soda - 15/09/2012

SuzanneMS: speaking of history, you and the other whiners might look up Huey Long, the development of LSU, and football and band's part in it. Ingrates at LSU have no idea what has been done for the university by football and the despised oil business. Most students could make up for any deficits at LSU by studying harder.

14) Comment by bourbon-soda - 15/09/2012

SuzanneMS: drop the names that aren't universities from your list and go read about the rest. History started before you were born, believe it or not.

15) Comment by ex-louisianian - 15/09/2012

I meant specifically the distressing public-money-for-parochial-school voucher issue, but I am aware that the Catholic church itself is in no rush to accept pupils who can afford their tuition only through state subsidy. But it goes to larger point in what you say as a tea party that wants to strip government to the bone: I see all conservative effort as an attempt to farm out essential functions of government, paid for through taxation, to corporations with little public oversight. It's not about "shrinking government" -- it's about weakening public accountability over what government actually does. How much accountability does the common citizen have over decisions made within the Catholic church, or really, over any of the for-profit corporations that manage state services?

16) Comment by hemogoblin - 15/09/2012

Ex, your crticisms of the Catholic Church have merit. My hope is that the Church will soon recognize that individuals are born homosexual, that no choice is involved. I'm not sure what you mean about dismantling public institutions in Louisiana, though. All the dismantling I have seen and experienced is from tea party people who reject all taxes and want to strip government to the bone.

17) Comment by ex-louisianian - 15/09/2012

Countries like Ireland and Mexico, and provinces like Quebec, have sought to remove the Catholic church from its influence in politics, the school system, the health care industry, social services and relief, etc. But in Louisiana, almost alone, is going in the opposite direction, and dismantling its public institutions to give the (unelected, hierarchical, all-male governed) Church an even stronger say in how to control the state. It's a horror, actually.

18) Comment by ex-louisianian - 15/09/2012

The Catholic church performed a sea-change with its attitude towards the Jews, which is commendable. Their views towards the protestants denominations depends strongly on the denomination, but it can't be described without some mention of a mutual animosity. The changes within the church were brought about by a liberalizing and ecumenical tendency that started 40 years ago that allowed the presence of mixed marriages, but I stand by exactly with what I wrote: How can the Catholic church /not/ be seen as strongly tendentious towards its own interpretation of faith? In pre-1960s US, and in nations with a Catholic monopoly of religion, their exclusionism comes out with the same force that it currently uses here in the US against homosexuality and contraception.

19) Comment by SuzanneMS - 15/09/2012

What are you talking about, bourbon-soda? Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, University of Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Duke, Univ. of Pennsylvania, California Institute of Technology, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Washington Univ. of St. Louis, Brown, Cornell, Rice -- none of these have ever been "football factories" at any point in time. We have to go to 17th ranked before we get to a powerhouse football team, Notre Dame; the next one is USC at 24. What schools are you thinking of? It's a convenient myth, but that's all it is.

20) Comment by Bouncer - 15/09/2012

The culture of Louisiana is shamelessly anti-intellectual. The current human incarnation of that ethos is Bobby Jindal.

21) Comment by bourbon-soda - 15/09/2012

1) The student who can discern the importance of what he is doing as opposed to what the mob demands, will have learned an important lesson. 2) Almost all great academic universities in the United States had a phase where they were a football factory. Some just miss the exit.

22) Comment by hemogoblin - 15/09/2012

Ex, You said it was bigoted against other religions, which is false

23) Comment by ex-louisianian - 15/09/2012

I said the Catholic church is bigoted, not that they were stupid.

24) Comment by hemogoblin - 15/09/2012

Ex, I know Catholics who are married to Jews, Muslims, and atheists, and all are happily accepted by the church

25) Comment by spqr - 15/09/2012

8.6...if football refuses to give financial guarantees to teams who visit LSU they will NOT come. If they do not come to play (unless No. 3 LSU wished to play the band or a fraternity) no one will and there is no money to make to give to academics. You don't follow sports much, huh?...And chem is right. Education has never been important in this state. Even today's so-called reforms are already failing. And failing big.

26) Comment by ex-louisianian - 15/09/2012

It's entirely expected, this concerted denigration of education in this state. Educated people demand more, and better, state services than what LA provides, so that annoys the "small government" (really, apologists for bad government) types. Educated people are secular or tolerant of even the "weird" "un-American" religions, which offends the bigotry of the Catholic church and the fundamentalists. Educated people also have high incomes, or can command higher incomes, so they immediately threaten the status of the Mike Foster good-ole-boys and their Jefferson Hwy back office corporate lackeys, the state's traditional elites. The right wingers, all of them, recognize education as a present danger to their political power, so they actively attempt to dismantle whatever exists of it in this benighted state.

27) Comment by [e-mail] - 15/09/2012

All you have to do is cut out all excessive salaries, eliminate perks, highly-paid job hopper national "educators", and focus on turning out graduates while accepting any largesse gracefully in lieu of hubris.

28) Comment by 8point6 - 15/09/2012

LSU paid guarantees to Idaho, North Texas and Towson for them to play in Tiger Stadium. Of the three, Idaho received the largest guarantee at $925,000, followed by North Texas at $900,000 and Towson at $510,000. "the academic side ought to be better supported by the state. " NO! Let the "athletic" side quit giving these "guarantees" to these schools to play here and redirect the guarantees to academics....IMO.

29) Comment by chem - 15/09/2012

"It’s time for Louisiana to demand that higher education is prioritized..." Yea, right! I agree with the article, but those who care about education are a distinct minority in this state. And even less so in the legislature. After all, Louisiana just gutted public education at all levels. And to show the world that they are serious about education, Louisiana allows tax money to go to schools that cannot meet minimum requirements, that have not enough space and supplies to meet the increase in students, and are allowed to teach students that Nessie is alive and well, therefore proving that dinosaurs and humans lived together. What a backward state we live in.