All that money rolling in to college athletics, and one of the heroes of this year’s College World Series will leave school with $150,000 in student debt.
At least the NCAA’s got enough money to pay its lawyers, though, so there’s that.
(h/t Dan Wetzel)
Get The Picture 
I recognize the strong feelings you have about this subject but let’s not limit the blame to the NCAA. Let’s include 1) the soaring, reckless spending by athletic departments on salaries, facilities, and staffing, 2) double digit increases in tuition costs with single digit inflation growth in the overall society for many years, 3) Title IX costs in sports meddling, 4) wastes in government spending in thousands of areas that could otherwise be used to subsidize college costs, etc., etc. As a person who received a partial scholarship for “minor” sports in the late 60s, I understand the feelings of the player, and the reason for the allocation of spending, but I was glad to have it anyway.
At that particular time, when my dollar was worth more than the dime it is today, we couldn’t have incurred $150K in debt had we spent 4 years in any college, but people have to realize when you are taking on debt equaling the entire cost of buying a “starter home” to get a college degree, you should enter than contract with your eyes open. What are your options? Will a degree have a quick enough payoff to justify the cost? I think society pushes too many people into higher education that would be better served learning a trade when you balance out the cost/return of the two options. I recognize that as a minority position, and respect there are other factors than finance to be included in the discussion, but that is my opinion.
LikeLike
My problem is the NCAA and the suits sit in Indianapolis and roll around in the money from March Madness and the College World Series. Then its leader, the despicable Mark Emmert, lectures us on the benefits of amateurism and appeals to the emotion of “Win for old State U.” I don’t know and, at this point, don’t care what replaces the antitrust structure of the NCAA, but I do want Jeffrey Kessler to burn the whole thing to the ground.
LikeLike
Yep. College sports aren’t amateur or “win one for ol’ State U” anymore. Let’s just make it a little more equitable.
LikeLike
Sad. Hope scholarships dent that lump here, but it’s more than a crying shame that kids have to negotiate partial scholarships. If monies are to be distributed, these places should have first dibs.
The Chanticleers should hold recruiting practices and invite major colleges to participate and give money just as it’s done in HS football camps. Is there any NCAA rule that could permit such an audacious move? I’d take their “leftovers” just for their heart. A team that’s accomplished what they have this year should have a moratorium on hiring their coaches away until full scholarships are awarded at this College Baseball Natl Champ team. That’s not a punishment, rather, it’s to keep such a team together for as long as possible.
They are good for all of College Baseball’s future popularity and we all should consider them as our personal champions by the mark of their endeavors.
LikeLike
You do realize the Chanticleers are just like the major schools with partial schollies for minor sports, right? Not saying your ideas are not worth exploring, and would not help, but this is a national issue that affects all schools, not just the small ones. We are talking a LOT of money and thousands, and thousands, of athletes to reach full scholarship levels.
LikeLike
I appreciate your concerns for college students, sorry, college athletes, but I find it difficult to correlate the NCAA making money and a kid taking out $150k in student loans for a Comms degree.
Did the NCAA snooker this kid and his family somehow?
LikeLike
WDE, the NCAA and its member institutions put an arbitrary cap of 11.7 scholarships on baseball programs. Why shouldn’t LSU be able to give as many full-cost baseball scholarships as they can afford? The other thing is that the guy the article is referring to is out of state. That’s serious cash out of pocket to decide to play baseball. When you can’t even put on a team with the scholarships allowed, something is wrong with the allocation. That’s the nasty underbelly of what’s happening in college sports right now.
I have a friend up your way whose son is one of the best high school golfers in North Carolina. He’s having to figure out the same thing but, fortunately, can afford to pay the difference between the scholarship and the total cost of attendance without saddling his son with a mountain of student loan debt. If you have a kid who is good at a non-revenue generating sport, don’t plan for them to get a full ride.
LikeLike
I agree with all your points, but the $150k is on the kid. Especially for a, borderline worthless (apologies), Comms degree.
Also the best golfer in NC needs to go to WF, or the lesser tours.
LikeLike
Non-revenue generating sports kids can’t get a full scholarship unless she is a female. College baseball players are the most discriminated against demographic in sports. Historical minority schools baseball teams are now full of white players. If one ever turns into a Coastal Carolina then things might change.
LikeLike
Think the golfer in the Winston Salem area just signed with UGA recently. Wake has great facilities and heritage but has let their big advantage slide. Hopefully we give him the out of state tuition as his partial. Lot better for him than housing or food.
LikeLike
That’s quite a coup
LikeLike
He is going to Wake.
LikeLike
Still a damn good school
LikeLike
Not sure who the top college golfer in the state of NC is but the guy in WS did sign with Georgia this spring. Friend of mine knows his parents well and the newspaper did an article on him and how he loved UGA. Don’t live in NC any longer so I don’t know much about other amateurs in the broader area. Lot of good golfers in that state and I know the Wake golf alums have not been happy with how they have missed out on talent, both nationally and in the South.
LikeLike
My friend’s son who is one of the top NC golfers for the class of ’17 is going to Wake. Coach Haack does a great job recruiting and has a good product to sell at UGA.
LikeLike
He will enjoy it there, great school and solid city around it. My daughter is a Wake law grad, went there after we moved but we had spent 22 years living there before, and after my kids were born there. I like Haas as a coach but he gets a lot of heat from the “power alum” guys.
LikeLike
My friend really likes Haas and thinks it’s a great situation in Winston-Salem.
LikeLike
If I were a betting man, I would bet my son doesn’t play. Not sure what happened, but somewhere along the way, my wife and I have essentially become non-golfers. Of my childhood foursome, only one of my brothers still plays regularly.
LikeLike
As a Veteran the GI Bill paid my way at UGA in the 70’s – Tuition is now 10 times more expensive.
LikeLike
I suspect it is much more than 1000%, RD. The 10 times more expensive applies to many items in my adult lifetime (electronics is one area that has gotten 10 times better with little change in price) but healthcare and education have far outpaced that benchmark from my experience. Shameful gouging.
LikeLike
I’m just glad I live in a country where young kids who want to better themselves by getting a college degree get to start out with this massive debt while the Mitt Romneys and the Koch brothers and the Trumps of this world can pay a lower marginal tax rate than their secretaries do . After these guys earned their money the old fashioned way, they inherited it.
I mean what’s the point of living in a free, democratic society if you can’t get rich enough to buy it so that it works for you and fucks everybody else?
LikeLike
LOL! Hilarious, and pathetic at the same time. Why don’t we spread the wealth around to all the folks on the planet? Damn, wish I had thought of that. Milk and honey for everyone, streets paved with gold, free healthcare for all, no one has to work the fields for food, or factories to build things. Just go to class and learn the arts. One world government, no wars, really cool idea. Sleep tight.
Now, how old are you? And friends, family, take you seriously?
LikeLike
Who Moved My Honey
LikeLike
Warren Buffet, someone who no one listens to, agrees with me: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1126/042b.html
I think it’s funny that they call him the “oracle” sarcastically, don’t you?
Billionaires paing rates under 20% while the rest of us pay closer to 30% or more is not a call for any of the nonsense you spewed. It’s a call for fairness and rationality. But those guys got what they paid for: the US government.
You’re an idiot.
LikeLike
Were you a musketeer? Would I know you if I watched some old film? And what are “sugar plums” anyway? LMAO.
LikeLike
You’re hilarious. Sugar plums! What a substantive comeback.
I know you aren’t capable of cogent thoughts so you hide behind frivolity and immaturity to obscure the shallowness of your opinions. It’s quite transparent that your simply fucking stupid.
For those with functioning cerebral cortexes: we had a budget surplus in 2001. Then airheads like scotchfucker voted for a guy who cut taxes for the rich twice, went to war twice without budgeting for it and expanded Medicare without paying for it. The anual deficit exploded, the economy collapsed and had we not found nearly a trillion bucks to stem the bleeding we’d have gone under.
Now these same idiots have nominated a guy who promises protectionism. That worked out just great in 1929.
The GOP because we want to tell our own grandchildren what it was like in the Depression too!
LikeLike
No, “your” the stupid one, but that is stating the obvious. I am not a member of the GOP, I only vote for them, defensively, in hopes of preventing something far worse than another 1930s like Depression, and hope more come to realize all Americanlivesmatter. Sadly, I think it is too late to stop either from dragging us into a living hell.
Enough of wasting time with people like you, I usually avoid it, but you are such a fun, little target. The old “better to keep your mouth shut” saying should kick in for you soon but I think it’s wisdom eludes you. Rant on, you rarely miss an example to make a fool out of yourself.
LikeLike
Look up who was president in 1929.
Cross reference his party affiliation.
Read about smoot-hawley tariff act.
Read trumps speech about NAFTA and the TPP.
Find a clue.
Stop being an idiot.
You’re embarrassing yourself.
I wouldn’t respond if I were you either.
You’re outmanned.
LikeLike
Wouldn’t that include black lives, too?
LikeLike
I just can’t imagine where this BLM hostility comes from. We are ALL treated equally by law enforcement:
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/8-white-people-who-pointed-guns-police-officers-and-managed-not-get-killed
LikeLike
Absolutely, that is meant to be inclusive, not racist. Until cultures assimilate and stop seeing things in terms of color or nationalistic priorities there will never be meaningful dialogue and respect. Racism is making decisions and judgments on the basis of race, and applies equally in all directions. You don’t try to work through a problem by taking a stance that offends the other side. Black lives matter might be the single worst slogan for a cause that I have ever heard. I can never hear it, or read it, without flinching because it overlooks everyone else’s worthiness, including me and my family.
And we will not make progress under the “new black panthers” either. They are the mirror image of the KKK, both hate groups. While they both include the Jewish people in their hate, they also share ideas of violence against people on the basis of race. Neither are acceptable, imo. By targeting police and hating white people in their mission statement, they only drive more moderates away. There is just no way either approach will succeed in doing anything other than enflaming the situation and further dividing an already fractured country.
There was a chance for this administration to do something special in this area but they chose to go the other way. We are all losers in this. Unlike the Palestinian homeland issue, this one could have been resolved, or at least advanced to the stage where a solution was in sight. I see no hope to ever put out the Middle East fire, the more I read on that the more hopeless I see it being.
LikeLike
I’ll agree that a simple “too” at the end would have improved the slogan immensely.
As long as the levers of government treat people differently on the basis of race you can’t ask the citizens not to notice. For example the level of disrespect, paranoia and downright insane conspiracy theories towards the current, twice elected president is unprecedented and people see it for what it is. You want to live in a color blind society, you have to first check yourself.
LikeLike
Um…
Mac, I would respectfully suggest that when even Newt acknowledges there’s a racial problem, there’s a racial problem.
LikeLike
The budget surplus you reference never actually existed; it was only a projection that did not come to pass.
LikeLike
Did the difference between government revenues and spending increase or decrease after January 2001?
LikeLike
And you need to learn the difference between ordinary income and capital gains income. Warren Buffet hasn’t taken any sort of salary in years; he lives on the growth of and the dividends paid by the various stocks he owns.
And he knows that what he says will be lapped up by the economic ignoramuses in the USA who aren’t smart enough to know the diference.
LikeLike
I understand the difference. It’s taxed differently by legislative choice creating the distortions Mr. Buffett noted were unfair to working people.
LikeLike
Just no. I’m sorry that you have this significant flaw in your understanding of citizenship. The high income folks pay plenty. Percentage differences do not equate to percentage of the tax burden satisfied. Indirect correlation. Can’t you see that a millionaire pays $200k and a $60k pays $18k? Big difference there.
Best cure for fixing the current tax system would be to repeal fed. Tax withholding. Nobody really even knows how much they pay and very few even have to write a check, most people don’t even think about it enough to realize that withholding is a huge scam.
LikeLike
Simple economics tells you two things: 1) the people who have the most to lose should pay the most; 2) it isn’t the rich folks kids manning a post so that the rest of us enjoy our country and our freedoms. It’s the regular Joe’s kids who are asked to kill and to die to protect the wealthy’s largess. I say that the rich should stop buying off politicians to avoid their responsibilities and pay their their fare share.
In short, if you lived on a plot of land and there was your 1 room shack and a 30 room mansion you didn’t live in would you want to pay half of the power bill? What if he sat on his ass and told you that you had to pick up a gun and keep trespassers off the place. Would that be fair? Maybe it’s only fair to assume that the guy that lives in the big house won’t bitch about the bills, but then again if he thinks your a fool he might convince you that you’ve got a hell of a deal. After all who you really have to worry about are those people that don’t look like you and don’t worship the same God as you that you need to be very, very afraid of. The guy in the big house promises he’ll take care of them for you so you can enjoy life as you have been. That in a nutshell, is GOP politics.
LikeLike
You’re.
LikeLike
An asshole.
LikeLike
You’ve convinced me.
LikeLike
Since you know the facts, exactly what is the tax bracket of the secretary for the Koch brothers.
LikeLike
Not lower than the boss’. If it were they’d claim the million bucks Warren Buffet offered.
Just to remind: Warren Buffett offered every CEO in America $1,000,00 if they could show that they themselves paid a higher rate in marginal taxes than their secretaries. He got 0 takers. That’s an America bought and paid for by the rich. George W. Bush called them “his base.”
LikeLike
After reading your comments, I think it’s safe to assume you do not have an accounting or English degree from UGA.
LikeLike
I think I can safely assume from reading your comment that you don’t have a clue as to how to articulate an opinion.
How about this: from your comment I can discern that you smell.
Fucking insightful ain’t it?
LikeLike
Lighten up, Francis
LikeLike
or economics just Bullshit Marxist propaganda..
The relatively well known quid pro quo for Buffets drivel about tax structures and rates is that if he’ll keep saying what the administration wants him to say about tax rates the administration will keep blocking the oil pipeline and thereby keep Mr Buffett’s trains that currently transport most of the oil to La. refineries totally full and thereby one of America’s few profitable railroads.
LikeLike
The REAL secret is that it was Buffett who placed those two birth notices in those Honolulu newspapers while a child born in Kenya to an american citizen mother was being born to ensure that he’d be eligible to be president while a child born in Canada to an American citizen mother would never have his eligibility to be president questioned by the same exact people because of the lead Buffett secretly placed into Rush Limbaugh action dolls so that the children of wingers would be even dumber than they would otherwise be.
Buffett was playing the long game. This shit goes deep.
You are right though. The beginning and end to Karl Marx was progressive tax rates. Who knew that we’ve been living under communism since before the Bolshevik Revolution? You did.
Hell Reagan’s tax plans kept progressive tax brackets in place because he was a communist. A hard core one at that.
LikeLike
Yeah, people should be more like the noble, pure, charitable Clintons who made their money by good old fashioned honest hard work.
You know, Bernie, you lost the primary.
LikeLike
The idea that college degree is the only way to make it is what has driven college costs up.
LikeLike
That pesky “supply and demand” strikes again. I guess next you’re going to tell us that health care costs are high because people don’t like being sick anymore than being uneducated. If they knew that they’d might just get better over time and without intervention maybe we could save some money, right?
BTW: since elementary and primary school is mandatory, why aren’t those costs rising at the same rates as health care and college costs? I think that insurance and government subsidies distort the markets even more than simple supply and demand but what do I know? Your idea of convincing high school graduates that the world needs ditch diggers too is probably the right one.
LikeLike
“Your idea of convincing high school graduates that the world needs ditch diggers too is probably the right one.”
I know this is meant to be funny, but I just had a full service plumbing/well service outfit at one of my houses and in 4 hours of work I had bill for 1K….those guys can bring down some serious cash. There ain’t not shame in being a ditch digger.
LikeLike
The drying up of state support for secondary education is what has driven tuition up.
LikeLike
I suspect that the growth of administrative positions has also had an impact.
The explosion of admin on campus hasn’t helped keep costs down either.
LikeLike
That is certainly a short term factor.
Click to access c13711.pdf
LikeLike
College costs grew out of whack with the economy long before states started cutting funding.
LikeLike
In Virginia, the state legislature started cutting funding to UVa, my alma mater, in the seventies, so, no.
LikeLike
I can’t dispute that, but I’m not saying states haven’t cut funding. I’m saying that college costs have grown far in excess of the economy, perhaps measured by the consumer price index, since about the 70’s. Through up and down, thick and thin, rich and poor, college costs are unrestrained.
LikeLike
Wonder how much of that was student athletic fees? Ironic wouldn’t begin to describe that.
LikeLike
True, some of the costs are definitely due to those fees, but I suspect a rather small percentage. Honestly don’t know why they are included/required for any student, but especially for athletes. Also don’t know why they get charged out of state tuition if they are “invited” to attend there to play sports
Isn’t it New Mexico who waives out of state tuition fees for illegal immigrants from Mexico while charging those fees to American citizens from neighboring states? Just heard part of that news story in recent weeks so I may not have all the facts straight but, wow, if true.
LikeLike
Here is the link for the tuition and fees at Georgia Southern, there are approximately 20,000 students enrolled. Doing the math will raise the eyebrows.
https://88dd0d233a03ecb2f153eff6604c4c74f8b6f03c.googledrive.com/host/0B2-7Jx7YLVDbWUxiSjdsMDFTVzQ/
LikeLike
Education should be about more than money. But the higher the costs go, the more pressure colleges create to turn the experience into solely a financial calculation.
I would love to see a system similar to one they use in some European and Asian countries – a battery of tests that opens the door to a free university education. You can pass them at 18 or 38 – just pass them.
If you want to slap a requirement that those graduates need to work with a non-profit or schools or something similar for 3 years afterwards, fine.
As for baseball, I know 3 former baseball players. 1 of them got all the way through college and even pitched in the CWS. He floundered in the job market for awhile and now is climbing ranks as a pitching coach. One attended 3 colleges following the coach who recruited him. Once his eligibility ended, he’s paying to get a degree at the local U. The 3rd flunked out at the end of his freshman season and to this day is bouncing around sub-minor A leagues trying to jump start a professional career in baseball.
Paying players is better than status quo but doesn’t even begin to address the larger problem here.
LikeLike
Baseball is such a weird sport anyway. I believe I read on here that minor league players are now suing because of overtime pay. The contract rules basically allow you to get paid nearly nothing for the first 10 years or so of your career, if you make it that long.
LikeLike
College baseball already has three strikes against it as far as the NCAA is concerned.
It lands on the ‘wrong’ side of Title IX;
The best high school talent drains directly to the professional leagues; and
It does not generate enough revenue to warrant their attention.
LikeLike
Baseball is only the second victim. Heard anything about college wrestling lately?
LikeLike
Only in my dreams….
LikeLike
This is not an NCAA problem, this is a parent problem. Any parent who would allow their son to take on $150,000 in debt to get a degree in anything at Coastal Carolina is either stupid, insane or secretly hates their kid.
LikeLike
Whoa big fella. Lotta productive CCU graduates in my neck of the woods.
LikeLike
A few around here too but it’s not a school you’d want to go into major debt to get a degree from. In fact, unless your goal is to end up a doctor or engineer or a lawyer from a top school, student debt is generally a terrible idea.
LikeLike
Or….they bleed teal, bronze and black.
How bout them ‘Cleers!
LikeLike
My first reaction to this post was: how did he get 150k in student loans at a Coastal? But after thinking about it, if school costs 30-35k per year from out of state, add living expense money, it could happen. Top with stage parents who can’t supply any financial help, and voila.
Query: Did the player get a scholarship or fraction thereof at any time in his career?
LikeLike