Back when I was in school, the CS dept was kind of ghetto. We had an old run down kind of grimy building, while the Computer engineering department had this massive new building with great architecture. We also had a research facility that was some kind of interdisciplinary engineering thing - all people did was program but it was part of the engineering dept and probably had as much money as the entire CS department. At least a lot of CS students got to work there. Seems like CS invents all the stuff and engineering gets all the money to actually use it :P ---

"Meanwhile, the athletic budget for the current year is $99 million, an increase of more than $2 million from last year. The increase alone would more than offset the savings supposedly gained by cutting computer science."

Okay, I'm not a fan of sports but universities spend money on their sports programs because they are PROFIT CENTERS. First of all, they sell tickets to the games, which makes money. Second of all they foster 'school spirit' which helps in getting donations.

If you look at Penn State (before the whole scandal) there's a perfect example of how that plays out. People donate to the school because they are nostalgic for the time they spent going to games and so on. It's stupid, IMO but it is what it is.

So really, saying people Universities should cut sports and focus on academics is like saying the government should save money by cutting the IRS's funding, or that drug companies could save money by cutting advertizing. No, those are the things that make money. If you spend less on them, you have less money overall, not more.

Again, I'm not a sports fan. I'm just pointing out the reality.