That is always my question. Where is all this money going? Tuition goes up well above inflation, that money doesn't disappear? Are more professors hired, more facilities built? Keep adding middle managers and secretaries?
State and federal funding has shrunk dramatically, and universities must make up the shortfall through tuition. At my university they are building new dormitories, from money out of the general fund, and they hope to recover this through increased enrollment.
They are expanding the faculty, too. But here is the problem: there isn't an infinite supply of capable students; the squabble that is going to happen for the few capable students in the mediocre horde isn't going to be fun. I predict that the model isn't going to be successful, but I cannot see what is going to take its place.
That squabble started happening 10 years ago, as universities started shifting far more money to marketing efforts for prospective students. I was working for one of the biggest companies in the higher ed space at the time, and following those dollars became its highest priority.
But you are right, it is going to get ugly as more students question the value of an education versus not or look to other alternatives. The higher ed balloon is stretch pretty thin right now and easy student loans are the only thing left inflating it, IMO.
It's going to pop, and I wouldn't want to be employed in higher ed when it does.
For state schools, there are many websites where you can see where all the money goes. There are armies of administrators who make unbelievable salaries. My sister is an academic and her advisor went into administration which bumped his salary up from $90K to $400K+.
Add up the loans and loan interest to build out sports facilities, hundreds of "athletic directors", bunch of underlings they direct on a daily basis, staff and maintenance hired to run the sports facilities, sports scholarships handed out to gifted students, multiply by number of universities and it starts to add up.
I think there are a fair number of colleges to profit from their sports programs. There is also no question that sporting programs are an important aspect of alumni contributions.
The problems is that there are many more that sink dollars into programs irresponsibly because they either irrationally believe they will get a profitable program or feel like they have to maintain some level of "sporting commitment" for its own sake.
Those calculations are highly dependent on how you interpret the costs of facilities build-up and maintenance.
Most of the time they're hidden on university's balance sheet apart from athletic program budget, since in theory a brand new stadium, training facility, basketball court or swimming pool is used by staff, faculty and students outside of athletic departments.
If the economic incentive was there, a host of private operators would bid to operate an athletic team and facility on a for-profit basis with school getting a cut of the action, sort of what you see with cafeteria, swag stores and other commercial outlets.
So, if I'm understanding your comment, it is even worse than that data shows? That is a frighteningly bold waste of money.
However, the other thing it doesn't show, which is also probably hard to quantify, is how much donor money comes in to the main fund because of continued interest in sporting (I believe my link shows contributions directly to the sporting program). Another factor is the marketing impact to prospective students who choose their school off if their teams.
I'm sure the politics and internal value judgements are complicated, but, as much as I enjoy my alma matter beating up on our rivals, I would enjoy my tax burden and my kids' tuition burden (which comes out of my pocket) to be less. More transparency on the subject would be nice.
