Longhorn Network and The Culture of Greed

Legitimate colleges don't make money, even UT. Too many suburban teenagers who care more about getting away from home than job training or intellectual development, so you have to provide a $50,000 a year lifestyle on a third of the revenue. And don't forget that 18-21 year olds are all idiots, so you need a staff of adults to manage their every move.

Most companies can shutter or delay production or relocate factories to manage their costs, a college has to provide the same services every year at the same location. And very few people give back to their school in any comparable fashion to the net value of the education or services they recieved there.

 

Occupy DKR

 

didn't pgabriel go to A&M ?

 

FWIW Harvard has by far the biggest endowment at $27.5 billion. UT is 4th at $14 billion.

 

UT simply did what was best for them given the circumstances. The Big 12 allowed them to create the network, that's the real crime in all of this. There isn't a school in the Big 12 that would have turned down that ESPN deal.

 

Even that is inaccurate. UT system is endowed as $14 billion. That's the sum total of the following:

The University of Texas at Arlington
The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College
The University of Texas at Dallas (Richardson)
The University of Texas at El Paso
The University of Texas at San Antonio
The University of Texas at Tyler
The University of Texas of the Permian Basin (Odessa)
The University of Texas–Pan American (Edinburg)
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston)
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler
The University of Texas Medical Branch (Galveston)
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas)

You'd be hard-pressed to say that someone who goes to UTEP or UTSA is the same as a student at UT Austin.

FYI - The richest universities (as of end of fiscal year June 2010) are:

1. Harvard: $32 billion, up 21.4%
2. Yale: $19 Billion, up 21.9%
3. Princeton: $17.1 Billion, up 21.9%
4. Stanford: $16.5 Billion, up 19.5%
5. MIT: $9.9 Billion, up 17.9%
6. Columbia: $7.8 Billion, up 23.6%
7. Notre Dame: $7.3 Billion, up 21.5%
8. University of Pennsylvania: $6.58 Billion, up 19%
9. University of Chicago: $6.3 billion, up 18.8%
10. Emory: $5 Billion, up 8.5%

source

The myth of UT wealth is based on the idea that the entire UT system is in Austin (it's not) and that the massive amount of money the football team generates is distributed evenly into the university coffers (for the most part, it's not).

 

The UT system also educated 100's of times the number of students at lower tuition rates than the other schools on the list.

 

Private universities still have the big money, but state universities are being run more and more like profit-driven machines with each passing year.

There's a reason almost all students will have thousands in debt before they finish.

 

Yes there is. Colleges know the students have access to low-interest loans courtesy of government. Aware that prospective students enjoy artificially increased purchasing power, college administrations raise tuition (and cut back their own aid programs) accordingly.

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I looked it up earlier. I think it's like 190,000 students and the 31st largest system in the world and the 7th largest in the US.
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Lifted from wikipedia....

1. University System of Ohio est. 2007 478,000
2. State University of New York est. 1948 467,845
3. California State University est. 1857 417,000
4. University System of Georgia est. 1931 311,442
5. City University of New York est. 1847 259,515
6. University of California est. 1869 209,080
7. University of Texas System est. 1881 190,000

 

Actually they probably do. Every year the Leg cuts the funding to state universities in order to keep the taxes low on the 1%. They keep raising tuition so kids without wealthy parents have to borrow more and more.

One can argue about the value of big time sports at a university, but at least UT sports actually pay for themselves.

If nothing else why would you want to deprive the ladies of their tennis scholarships?

 

Not to mention the 10% rule, which at one point accounted for 81% of UT Austin incoming freshmen (now capped at 75%). By law, UT cannot turn away these students. They must be admitted. More students = more expeneses. And tution only covers so much.

 

The creation of the LHN was certainly a factor in A&M's decision to leave the conference but to state:

is simply laughable. Question: do you know when the LHN was created? Do you know which two universities had already left the Big 12 I look forward to you documenting this. Good thing you are objective...