Supreme Court rules 9-0 against NCAA regarding college athletes

[Ruralguy]

Makes sense...we'll see what happens.

[Parasaurolophus]

Presumably you can't just set a special tuition level for student-athletes, so unless tuition rises for everyone, they're safe on that score.


What gets me is that if student-athletes shouldn't be compensated because they're "amateurs" doing it for love of the sport, then surely the same should be true of the coaches. Since dozens of assistant college football coaches currently make over $800 000...

[lightning]

I have the feeling that this is going to bring on some unintended consequences.

Uh, yeah. That's the first thing I thought of. I'm at a D1 school, and although the Athletics at my uni does not pull their own weight and has to be subsidized, this might kill off athletics at our university. I'm not sure how badly it will affect our enrollment and some academic programs that are athletics-associated, but there will probably be some impact. Now, some might say this a good thing for academics, that killing off athletics means that academics will be more of a financial priority since athletics would no longer be subsidized . . . . Ha ha ha ha!!!!

Frankly, I will shed the same amount of tears for D1 Athletics at my school as they would for academic programs that get shut down. ---Nada---

[dismalist]

Presumably you can't just set a special tuition level for student-athletes, so unless tuition rises for everyone, they're safe on that score.


What gets me is that if student-athletes shouldn't be compensated because they're "amateurs" doing it for love of the sport, then surely the same should be true of the coaches. Since dozens of assistant college football coaches currently make over $800 000...

And us!

[mamselle]

I'm wondering what my BA alma mater (Ohio State) thinks of all this....

M.

It is possible that certain elite institutions in D1 are already paying football and basketball players, and not just in scholarships. Heh.

I'm sure The OSU is not one of them (okay, they probably are), and this may mean the cost of now is transferred from alums and apparel companies to the school. So the schools will be glum.

The summer I taught swimming as part of the Summer Inner-City Youth Sports Program, we had to bring the kids over from the pool to the batting cage/track arena beside the ice rink for their snack boxes (which was part of what they got for attending).

The little red Corvette that Archie Griffin and Corny Green drove up in, to throw a few footballs and impress the kids (very clearly staged, to my jaundiced eye...) had to have been an alumni gift.

In fact, I just realized I can almost bet I knew the name of the alumni. After playing for OSU and then professionally, the fellow who was my Sunday School teacher had started a car dealership.

And that also wasn't surprising: W. Hayes also attended that church, and his wife was in my mother's "Women's Group" as they called them then. 

Circles within circles,...

M.

P.S., No-one calls it "The OSU" whatever the stationary and journalistic usage advisements are....it's just "OSU" (the school in Oklahoma isn't considered, sorry...).

[jimbogumbo]

I'm wondering what my BA alma mater (Ohio State) thinks of all this....

M.

It is possible that certain elite institutions in D1 are already paying football and basketball players, and not just in scholarships. Heh.

I'm sure The OSU is not one of them (okay, they probably are), and this may mean the cost of now is transferred from alums and apparel companies to the school. So the schools will be glum.

The summer I taught swimming as part of the Summer Inner-City Youth Sports Program, we had to bring the kids over from the pool to the batting cage/track arena beside the ice rink for their snack boxes (which was part of what they got for attending).

The little red Corvette that Archie Griffin and Corny Green drove up in, to throw a few footballs and impress the kids (very clearly staged, to my jaundiced eye...) had to have been an alumni gift.

In fact, I just realized I can almost bet I knew the name of the alumni. After playing for OSU and then professionally, the fellow who was my Sunday School teacher had started a car dealership.

And that also wasn't surprising: W. Hayes also attended that church, and his wife was in my mother's "Women's Group" as they called them then. 

Circles within circles,...

M.

P.S., No-one calls it "The OSU" whatever the stationary and journalistic usage advisements are....it's just "OSU" (the school in Oklahoma isn't considered, sorry...).

Heh. I know. It's just a way to rib my rabid OSU colleagues

[mahagonny]

Presumably you can't just set a special tuition level for student-athletes, so unless tuition rises for everyone, they're safe on that score.


What gets me is that if student-athletes shouldn't be compensated because they're "amateurs" doing it for love of the sport, then surely the same should be true of the coaches. Since dozens of assistant college football coaches currently make over $800 000...

And us!

'Interest in giving back to the community' has long been the rational given for crappy pay for part time faculty.
I'm wondering if the state universities will be exempt from paying 50% of the employee's social security tax as many are now. Another ripoff.

[dr_codex]

So, do we pay them whatever amount and they cover their own tuition? Always bugs me that tuition is ignored as a benefit in these conversations.

A tuition waiver is peanuts compared to the billions earned annually by NCAA executives, university athletic program employees, TV networks, apparel manufacturers, video game companies, etc.

Yup, and for the students in the sports that generate that kind of $$$ it's not like they have time or focus for their studies anyway. Frankly, I think that for students in marquis sports on full scholarships we should pay them to play during their eligibility and THEN give them four years of tuition and support to be students (either right after, or they could come back later if they get drafted to play professionally).

I heard one of the plaintiffs (I think) on NPR arguing precisely this: he wants his alma mater to pay for a proper trade school experience, after college, as compensation for four years of non-education, knowing that the odds of any kind of professional football contract are virtually nil.

I don't think most people in D1 programs are kidding themselves that their tuition is worth much, except insofar as the degree itself might be valuable.

Finally, I share the sentiment that there are going to be unintended consequences. But anybody not actually asleep could see this decision coming at least a decade ago.

Whatever comes out of this, it's hard to see how it could be worse that the system that's been in place for the past 50 years.

[Cheerful]

Since dozens of assistant college football coaches currently make over $800 000...

$800k?  That's peanuts.  Many coaches make in the millions.

https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/

EDIT:  I see you specified assistant coaches.

[Parasaurolophus]

Since dozens of assistant college football coaches currently make over $800 000...

$800k?  That's peanuts.  Many coaches make in the millions.

https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/

EDIT:  I see you specified assistant coaches.

Yeah. I mean, it's ridiculous all the way down. But the assistants are clearly less important, and clearly bloat. A business model which has everyone making enormous profits--profits which dwarf faculty and even most admin salaries!--but which pays the workers nothing is... well, it sounds a lot like slavery.

And the proof is in the pudding that even this brain-dead Supreme Court can see it, and can't justify it. (If you'll permit such a tortured phrase.)

[mahagonny]

If you took all the overpaid coaches, their assistants, and all of the highly paid administrative bloat positions, out of academia, you'd have many fewer with whom senior way-tenured faculty with light schedules and retired tenured who are paid way more for sitting home on their butt than adjunct faculty are paid for Monday through Friday and weekends for grading and class prep, compare favorably. Speaking of unintended consequences.

[Ruralguy]

Maybe I shouldn't go down this path, but could you clarify that last point? I've been reading the second to last sentence (which I guess is the first sentence!) a few times and still can't quite process it.

[mahagonny]

Maybe I shouldn't go down this path, but could you clarify that last point? I've been reading the second to last sentence (which I guess is the first sentence!) a few times and still can't quite process it.

Faculty salaries are rarely considered bloated. And it's hardly ever claimed that there are extra tenured faculty who could be done without. That's partly because we have other big expenses that look more like bloat to point to.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/01/19/faculty-groups-try-educate-biden-salaries
BTW, remember this? Didn't go over well. Old Joe sometimes rushes right in where angels fear to tread.

[dismalist]

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2012/01/19/faculty-groups-try-educate-biden-salaries

Faculty wages will cause the tuition (price) rise iff the supply of faculty falls. If one considers only the high flyers, the supply of those must fall to make the price rise. The opposite seems to have happened.

Thus, the price rise is a demand side phenomenon and causes the wage rise on average or of some, not the other way around.

As my father used to say, there's too much money around!

[Ruralguy]

I don't know about most schools, but every year people petition to create tenure track faculty positions. Replacements for retirees mostly get renewed. Growth positions are actually rare, and even more rare in depts. that haven't shown explosive growth (only even close to being true for 1 or 2 departments). These decision get made based on advice to the Dean from tenured faculty. So, effectively, we turn down tenure track growth every single year.

I would say our salaries are OK at my school. Without COL adjustment, we're just above average, maybe a bit more so for certain categories, but that always shifts with time. Lets just say very very few are going to be retiring with 6 figure salaries. We have many full time adjuncts, and their pay is decent. Well above 25K, I can say that.

Salaries (and other compensation) are almost going to be the biggest budget outlay. That's hardly unique to faculty, but yeah, if salaries go up just a small amount its probably going to mean a tuition increase (though, that's backwards of our common practice---we don't raise salaries until we know we have much larger enrollment at the same tuition rate). How misbalanced this is between upper admin and certain coaches is highly dependent on the type of school.