@Leon Said
Not dismissing any of your other points, and overall message here, all of which I agree with, but I wonder if the football program pays for itself or even turns a profit for universities, with the ticket sales, merchandising, and television contracts. It certainly does for the NFL and they have to pay athletic salaries.
At other schools I could grudgingly agree there may be a point of them bringing in money. They are not in my state. Also we are still paying former football coaches millions a year, the sports director is set to stand trial for some type of embezzlement charges. And they cut the three sports programs we were actually good at and the community cared about. It’s hard to get more money from the community/state after that so no choice but to raise tuition.
@mrmhead Said
Same situation with healthcare - but that will be another thread in this series, I'm sure. (Thanks Leon!!)
Other than that .. Yeah!! What she said!
On a re-read: Yeah, that "book" scam they got going!!
They re-arrange chapters, or update a few paragraphs and it's suddenly a "New Version Required" from year to year so 1 - No used books available for on the cheap and 2 - You can't resell your book for decent dollars because it's "out of date"
Like 1 + 1 = 2 changes from year to year!
Textbooks are the f***ing worst. Many libraries/librarians are trying to move to open source/library owned information that is just as accurate and relevant but a lot of professors are stuck in their ways, and sometimes there is a bit of “status” conflict behind taking suggestions from others. So it’s compilcated and not broadly adopted.