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Message: [QUOTE="nzm136, post: 1156976, member: 2531"] "I don't care about interviews." ...Or apparently facts and common sense for that matter. Nothing that I have said is controversial. Marginal costs and variable costs are the same thing. When the athletic department pays a scholarship, which they do (I have no idea why you think they don't because no head of a department would EVER let athletic scholarships hit their budget - think about it. Why would they?), and that payment exceeds the variable cost of educating another student, then the athletic department is subsidizing the academic side. Don't believe me. Look up the definitions of those words (make sure you examine marginal/variable costs, not average costs - average cost is probably in excess of tuition, but marginal costs are not). Generally universities reverse some of the subsidy in the form of a payment back to athletics (as I'm sure SU does), but that payment is almost never a realistic estimate of the athletic department's excess payments for several reasons: 1) determining marginal costs is not easy, and 2) academics control the budget (think about it - the vast majority of the university is comprised of academics and where athletics bring in a hundred million dollars at big universities, academics bring in billions of dollars), so any errors are in their favor. SU's athletic department is generally (read "almost always") in the black (although the last several reported years may have been in the red due to building projects, buyouts, and advantageous bookkeeping). As proof of SUAD's strong financial position (not using interviews), why do you think that there is a university-imposed media tax on athletics? Why do you think that the university charges the athletic department for the use of the Carrier Dome? If the athletic department was really in the red, wouldn't it be way easier (and more time efficient - thus cheaper) to waive those fees? That would act as a payment to the athletic department (moving it towards the black), but it wouldn't involve complicated internal accounting (and the man hours that entails). "Last time I looked at them it showed rutgirls as breaking even. Why? Because their yearly shortfall gets covered by the state. There was an article one year where they were $20m+ in the hole but it was covered by NJ taxpayer money." No. There are many articles that say that. There aren't with Syracuse. There are a handful, but they only come up when A) the AD is trying to get out of paying for something big that arguably benefits the entire school (i.e. BE exit fee), and B) when we have especially down years and revenue is way below normal (i.e. the height of the Grob years). Notice the schools with big subsidies generally have revenues that match expenditures (i.e. Rutgers matches to the dollar). Then notice how we don't. Our revenue is something like $10mm over expenses. Why would we over-subsidize our athletic program? "The new chancellor has also asked his faculty senate to make SUAD finances a focus item. The BOT supposedly did something similar." Would you expect differently if money is flowing into the school from athletics? Kent probably wants to reduce the subsidy reverse so as to keep more athletic money in academics. I'm guessing that he is eager to do that because Nancy took on a lot of debt during the recession when labor costs were low and loans interest rates were low, and because the AD is about to get/just got a wave of cash so now is the easiest time to do do it from a political standpoint (especially since he is new and changes are expected). [/QUOTE]

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