I have been to enough budget meetings to have a "little learning"--and we
all know the danger inherent in that.  The "cost" and "benefits" of
football or any sport are not as easily identified as some of the comments
on RAVEN would indicate.  Perhaps someone in budgeting with more knowledge
than I have can further clarify, but I would indicate the following points
to stir up the conversation:

If we have 80 students on football scholarships, that means the per student
subsidy of $5,773 from the state appropriations for each of these students
comes to $461,840.  I doubt if many of those students will be here without
those scholarships, and that money would be cut out of our budget.
Furthermore, these students also pay technology fees, facility fees,
student debt service fees out of those scholarships.  This obviously puts
another chunk of money back into the budget.  They also pay for housing,
purchase their meals here, and buy books (indirect benefits to budgeting).
So that huge savings that we are led to believe would materialize by
getting rid of football may not exist.  We can start thinking about other
ramifications of a drop in enrollment of 80 students also. The argument
could be made, of course, that we should take the football scholarship
money and put it elsewhere to bring in the same number of students, but
that probably would not be an easy task especially if it is designated
funding.

Verbie Prevost




Verbie Lovorn Prevost
Katharine Pryor Professor of English
Director of English Graduate Studies
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Ave
Chattanooga, TN  37403
Phone: 423-755-4627
Fax: 423-785-2282
email: [log in to unmask]