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Comment by Jtsummers | Hacker News Reader

Cutting research and enrolling more students isn't necessarily the way to go.

How about save money for both students and the university. Drop the absurdly nice housing that's going into them. This will reduce room & board fees and cut staffing, construction, & maintenance costs for the university.

Athletics: Drop athletes that aren't student athletes. I'm sorry, but illiterate players don't belong in college. It's a disservice to them, the rest of the students, and the university's reputation. Stop spending astronomical amounts on football (primarily) and other sports, even if it pays for itself it's not needed for an academic environment. Rein these in, keep athletics but cut the programs so they aren't (budget-wise) on the level of some professional teams.

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This.

Plus I remember reading an article a while ago saying that universities had no incentive to cut costs due to student loans. Effectively, student loans are at least partially responsible for driving ever higher costs for tuition.

I'm very frustrated about this as I would like my (eventual) kids to go to college at my alma mater but at $40k+/per (for a public school !!!), I can't fathom that happening.

I remember reading an article a while ago saying that universities had no incentive to cut costs due to student loans.

If universities didn't have an incentive to cut costs, why the shift to adjuncts? Just to make life shitty for junior faculty? Do you really think that's plausible? Really?

(tongue only partially in cheek) They're only cutting costs in areas that potential students can't observe / don't care about, like teaching. They won't cut costs in important areas like admissions staff, gym facilities, football stadiums, and fancy architecture because students see those things on tours.

> It's a disservice to them, the rest of the students, and the university's reputation.

Not that I necessarily disagree with you but for lots of big public schools the reality is that reputation of football/basketball teams is as important (if not more) than academics, particularly WRT to alumni dontations. Those 2 in particular are also generally quite profitable for the big schools (isn't free labor great)

>Athletics: Drop athletes that aren't student athletes. I'm sorry, but illiterate players don't belong in college. It's a disservice to them, the rest of the students, and the university's reputation. Stop spending astronomical amounts on football (primarily) and other sports, even if it pays for itself it's not needed for an academic environment. Rein these in, keep athletics but cut the programs so they aren't (budget-wise) on the level of some professional teams.

This isn't going to happen in the current environment. There is literally billions of dollars of profit at stake.

>There is literally billions of dollars of profit at stake.

Only for the top schools in top conferences, which is a relatively small number of universities in the US.

You know those games that big universities play against smaller ones? Those smaller schools get paid to participate -- typically in the millions range. Why else would they willingly walk into a high-probability loss situation?

So sure, it's not billions. But it's not necessarily a losing game for those non-top-tier teams either.

in aggregate, it is still a losing game for all but the top programs

Professors are not rewarded for doing a good job at teaching. They are rewarded for paying for their own salary using government research grants. Universities have their priorities badly misplaced from what I have seen.

re: Athletics: I'm not sure I agree. Kids that wash up out of minor league baseball (instead of attending college) end up with nothing. Kids that play college football at least have a degree from a college which is worth something. If anything, I feel the college football players get exploited. They create a hugely disproportionate amount of value to the amount that they receive in return.

> They create a hugely disproportionate amount of value to the amount that they receive in return.

You can actually immediately see this with the constant busts of universities breaking NCAA rules on player compensation. If these athletes truly did not bring value, then there would be no reason to break these compensation rules to provide value back to them.

Athletic budgets are usually completely separate from the rest of the school.

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