One of my must-read football articles every week during football season for the past several years has been ESPN Page 2's Tuesday Morning Quarterback by Gregg Easterbrook. Check out this week's here.
Here is an excerpt from the column I found of particular interest:
Bonus Obscure College Score of the Week: Saint Cloud State 42, Hillsdale 28 (Division II playoff opening round). Located in Saint Cloud, Minn., Saint Cloud State charges its students a total of $1.3 million in fees annually to support athletic programs.
One of the hidden problems of collegiate sports is that schools increasingly charge students to support money-losing athletic programs beloved by alums and boosters. Longwood University of Virginia charges each student an annual $2,022 fee to support sports. In the 2008-2009 academic year, the large public universities in Division I charged their students a total of $795 million to support athletics. It' s one thing if wealthy boosters pony up for sports programs -- quite another if typical students, most of whom never benefit from sports, and most of whom are struggling to afford college, are the ones handed the bill.
This USA Today article notes that many big colleges don't disclose the fact that part of the tuition fee supports athletics -- students and their parents are made to think the tuition cost goes entirely to academics. Saint Cloud State held a referendum whether to increase athletic fees, so kudos to this school for being open. But there may be a scandal brewing here -- college students, and their parents, don't realize that what they think is an academics charge is actually for athletics.
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