PRIORITY ONE

Posted on | by Ed

Say you were the president of a large, middling public university and you had to find a way to compensate for declining state funding. If your first reaction is, "We should build a $246,000,000 football stadium for our thoroughly mediocre team!" then you might have a future in university administration, at least at Colorado State University.

In much the same way that "Tax cuts create jobs!" is an article of faith among conservatives despite all evidence to the contrary, "The athletic program will draw out-of-state students" is an article of faith among the university brass. State universities rarely have trouble attracting enough in-state enrollment, as "cheap and close to home" are two powerful selling points for the parents of college-bound students. However, what universities and state legislatures really love are the out-of-state students who can be socked for two, three, even four times as much tuition. State legislators know that their constituents will be angry if in-state tuition rises. And the people affected by out-of-state tuition don't vote for the Colorado state legislature so the political cost is zero.

The question, however, is what would draw kids from other states to Colorado State. No offense to CSU, which I'm sure has fine programs, but there isn't much to make it stand out among the hundreds of other similar, and often cheaper, public universities. People from all over the country will apply to elite schools like UC-Berkeley or Michigan, but the many universities that fall into the Average category are nearly indistinguishable. What distinguishes Colorado State from Washington State from Illinois State from Southern Florida? We could argue that one is as good as any other, and therein lies the rub.

Despite low attendance (sub-30,000) at the current stadium, CSU boosters appear to think that a quarter-billion dollar 40,000 seater will soon be filled with fans and drawing in students from all over. This logic is questionable at best for reasons that should be obvious. The string of assumptions is perilously thin – that great football stars will start choosing CSU because of its stadium, that the team will become a powerhouse, and that a good team will bring in students from California and so on. That certainly could work. It also very easily might not work. There are dozens of other big universities trying the same trick, many of which – Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Auburn, Wisconsin, Ohio State, UCLA, and so on – are quite good at it, way ahead of an upstart program, and, not insignificantly, not located in Fort Collins, CO.

The science of trying to define what high school kids look for when choosing a college is the closest thing to alchemy that one can get paid to do these days. It's tough to model irrational or quasi-rational decision making, and who knows what combination of factors will or will not bring more applications to CSU. What is certain is that the $250 million stadium will be an enormous yoke around the university's neck for years to come, and it might be a crushing burden if it hosts half-empty football games. Having a big-time athletic program is indeed a good drawing card, but CSU's booster appear to be overestimating the ease with which an Alabama-caliber football program can be built.

34 thoughts on “PRIORITY ONE”

  • The prophet Nostradumbass says:

    I don't know about athletic facilities, but the UC system have been actively recruiting out-of-state students because they can charge them a lot more money that people from California.

  • middle seaman says:

    After a long career in academia, the justice system (not a lawyer) and the software industry, no stupid, outrageous and clownish move by the powers to be surprises me.

    The systems I know are headed, typically, by only partially functional individuals. There are some great heads of organizations, but they are rare. Academia is as stupid as the waste disposal section of a town in Alabama (or any other location), but it has way too much money to waste.

  • wetcasements says:

    I mean, _maybe_ a Boise State — a team that never wins championships, but has a good track record of punching above weight and winning decent bowl games.

    But CSU? Jesus, they're the brussel sprouts of sports programs. Totally uninteresting.

    But I'm sure an MBA type on the Board of Visitors forwarded e-mails about synergy and needing to compete and other such management-speak bullshit, and the English and French departments won't be able to give health insurance to their adjuncts yadda yadda yadda.

  • Mike S. says:

    Nostradumbass has it right, Cal recruits out-of-staters big time.
    Even worse, Cal is about 250 million in the hole for – wait for it – the renovations to Memorial Stadium. The total cost of the project was something like 320 million; critics said at the outset that the administration's plan to fund it with season ticket sales was wishful thinking, and the critics were right.

    middle seaman sez: no stupid, outrageous and clownish move by the powers to be surprises me.
    Indeed, I'm making an effort to stop using the phrase "I can't believe [whatever asinine crap]" altogether.

  • Arslan says:

    It must be easy to get a job as one of these administrators if you're skilled in the art of bullshit. Like wetcasements says you can just throw around words like "synergy" or, as I would recommend, "branding" and nobody will suspect that you're full of shit.

  • Mingent Whizmaster says:

    I think it was Stephen Weinberg who, when asked to comment
    on the number of Nobel laureates in the physics department at
    the University of Texas, said something like:
    "We wanted to assemble a faculty
    that the football team could be proud of."

  • c u n d gulag says:

    Yeah, folks – but CA's, CA!
    And FL's, FL!
    Why would anyone from out of state want to go to Ok, or NE?
    Or, that part of CO where CSU is housed in?

    Maybe all of those schools have some great educational programs in some field or other – and I'm sure that they do – but couldn't a kid who's not going to play a sport find a somewhat comparable educational program in a town or city in a state that has some… for lack of better words… some shit worth doing when you're not in class, or at some stadium or arena?

    Years ago, after driving through the town Penn State is ensconced in, in the middle of dairy and farm country, I started to have a greater appreciation of how great a salesman Joe Paterno was.
    There was no there, there.
    Unless you define "there," as dumps selling over-priced beer and mediocre pizza.
    And you can find those places surrounding any and every college or university.
    So, why not go to a college near a great city, or the ocean?

    But, then, wtf do I know?
    I went to college at Marist, in Poughkeepsie, NY, back in the late 70's.
    So, I'll just go to the corner and stfu, while the rest of you talk.

  • Anonymouse says:

    It's been brainwashed into a shocking number of people that football is *always* a money-maker for universities–ALWAYS. That leads to the notion that universities should be on their knees in gratitude to the football program and football players.

  • Anonymouse says:

    As the parent of a college freshman, I know from recent experience what havoc sports play on the rest of the university. Last year when we looked at colleges, one small private school that wanted my son had absolutely atrocious, 1940s-era dorms for non-athletes (the athletes got their own special dorms) and the science lab was crumbling but the football field had just gotten a multi-million-dollar upgrade. My kid, who couldn't care less about college football but does want to study science, chose not to go there.

  • Delbort says:

    I think the rationalization is way simpler: MBAs like college football, football team gets a shitload of money, business school gets another shitload, everyone else fights for the crumbs.

    "Of course the business school needs a shiny new 10-story building complex, we need it to create top talent like me!"

  • kentropic says:

    Here's the nut graf from the linked WSJ article, which reads like something straight out of The Baffler:

    "In the past six years, Colorado State has spent $690 million on new or updated facilities to make itself more attractive to students. It completed a $32 million renovation to its recreation center that included an indoor climbing wall and smoothie bar, and it is building dormitories with such amenities as private bathrooms and a fireside lounge."

    Well, if that's not enough, let's throw in a new stadium! This is *exactly* why the current system of higher education is doomed, utterly.

  • charluckles says:

    I am right in the middle of this story and I will have to say that it is a mess. This was a place with a lot of mutual pride and cooperation in the relationship between the city and the university and that has largely been destroyed. And I do think it reflects two highly disturbing trends in our society that are only going to get worse before they get better.

    One, the switch from public to private for many of our societies most important assets. Public financing has been killed for CSU and in fact it has long term plans in place to subsist as a private university. This for a land-grant insitution mind you. That leaves the U constantly chasing not only the out of state student, but even more so we end up chasing the big donor. Buildings, equipment, fellowships and teaching positions, it all has someone or some companies name attached anymore. And thats why if you get the president and the AD on board and can line up a few people willing to drop 7+ figures for a luxury box and their name on something then what the majority of the town and a majority of the faculty and staff thinks no longer has much weight.

    And two, I think it reflects this great man theory that seems to prevalent in our society in this age. That is, that building something great is not a long term process that requires the cooperations of thousands, but is instead about management hiring the superstar. So building a great university become more about hiring the right AD and football coach then it does about taking decades and the work of many to build great programs.

  • Dan E says:

    I'm also afraid that many of these administrators don't fully realize the gloomy demographics picture of college bound students in the coming years. Too many schools are recruiting in California and Texas and other states because they think there is a large out-of-state population they can convince to attend their institutions. Unfortunately for them, the growing populations are lower income non-white students who are not willing to pay out of state tuition unless it comes with huge amounts of need-based aid, which effectively wipes out the benefit of charging out-of-state tuition. In addition, it increases the need for the institution to have large-scale remedial programs to get students up-to-speed on math and other basic academic areas. At the end of the day, the schools can recruit out of state all they want, but more and more they are going to find they are against a rock and a hard place. The full-pay out of state students have much more interesting choices than CSU, shiny new stadium or not.

  • Ten Bears says:

    Seems to have worked for Oregon, though as a fourth generation Oregonian, second generation Duck alumni and parent of a Duck I find it to have cheapened who we are. Notre Dame is proof dog doesn't give a flyin' fig about football. Not to mention the similarities twixt "the wave" and the response to Hitler's Nuremburg speechs.

    The rule applies equally, in my fifteen years experience with the The Tower: it prevails in IT managers… you don't have to know anything about IT to be a manager, just have know how to bullshit the upperlings while bullying the unders. So too with administration of the two institutions I joined.

    I was reluctant at first, but am quite happy now "retired", having…

    No fear.

  • RosiesDad says:

    Ann Arbor, Gainesville and Tuscaloosa would not likely be bigger tourist draws than Fort Collins but they do have the programs there already and decades of tradition and history. And the Gators play in a stadium that was originally constructed in the 1930's (with many additions over the years to increase seat capacity) and the university has never seen the need to raze it to build another facility even though the UF campus has more than enough land to build four more 100K capacity buildings if they were so inclined.

    At the end of the day, building a new mega facility before you have the need for it is putting the cart before the horse. Build the program, attract the students and student-athletes and then think about building a palace to house them.

  • Leading Edge Boomer says:

    As noted in the WSJ article, CO has reduced its support for higher ed by 73% since 1980. While CSU is doing a splendid job of attracting research funding, it is of course illegal to spend those funds for anything other than what was proposed.

    The real villains in the piece are the CO legislature, already over-representing rural interests, and the Initiative process in CO. Burdened by two contradictory constitutional amendments (one severely limits revenue increases, the other mandates growth in K-12 ed by 1% over inflation), higher ed has taken it on the chin, as well as on other body parts, by legislators who have no idea what "long-term" means.

    The CSU administration must do all it can to replace lost revenues for instruction. It is true that they are in the same rat race–climbing walls included–as most other schools in attracting students (especially those shiny ones from out-of-state), so it's always a zero-sum game unless someone finds a brilliant alternative. But there is no alternative except accelerated mediocrity.

  • Anonymouse says:

    @DanE; another factor is the cost even for in-state students. We looked at various 4-year schools, but my son ended up at Community College. He likes to play sports, but is not a professional athlete, and at the CC he was able to take a full semester–including Football as a gym class–for $1500. His STEM classes average 10 – 12 students and the Chem lab is top-notch. With the Teatards determine to bring life to a halt, it didn't make sense for us to take out loans for $40k to support some school's football team.

  • Ursula says:

    This is all related to our "bigger is better", "new and improved", "constant growth is sustainable" culture. We can't be satisfied with what we have, or everyone will pass us by, so let's go all out, get the biggest improvement – everyone can hold the world record in something, even if it is just having the largest ball of tim foil.

    Is there an end to this? The hubris of the 1920's gave way to the sobering Great Depression and the New Deal. Our betters have all but dismantled that deal, only keeping the things that help keep the wealth stable so the policy makers never think things are 'that bad'. When will enough be enough?

  • BruceJ says:

    "As noted in the WSJ article, CO has reduced its support for higher ed by 73% since 1980."

    This, a thousand times this. Place I work isn't as bad but the lege has cut our per-student spending by 55% (Had wto work up those stats a while back). CSU is essentially a private school forced to work under public school rules right now.

    It all goes back to the 'sumpthing for nothing' fantasies of the right wing in this country. Tax cuts increase revenue, cutting worker pay boosts the economy, deferring maintenances strengthens roads and bridges.

  • Khaled says:

    People from Colorado, maybe you can answer this- does this have anything to do with CSU.vs CU? Perhaps CSU figures that a fancy new stadium will get them into the Big 12 or Pac 12 and that cash cow.

  • guttedleafsfan says:

    Forget football, Coloradians, and build a Patrick Roy Treatment Centre, you are going to need it, Fun season coming up!

  • Redleg says:

    Boy, there's no love for MBAs here. I don't know that we can blame this entirely on MBAs working in university administration. My university has plenty of fucked-up decision making without having MBAs in the top positions.

    I suspect that part of the problem is university officials losing sight of their overarching purpose: educating our young folks so they can get meaningful work, have a meaningful career, and be engaged in making our society better (by voting for Democrats). Higher ed. does have problems, mainly the steady dwindling of state expenditures on higher ed. Public universities have had to raise a great deal of money from private and corporate donors and those big donors do influence how university administrators think. Some administrators seem to be buying into some of the hogwash that some in the business community peddle as solutions to the problems of higher ed. and many faculty members are rightfully skeptical- after all, we're the people doing the teaching and the research.

    I am a tenured management professor at a mid-level business school and can tell you that many of my colleagues are very focused on educating business majors to be ethical, socially responsible citizens rather than money-grubbing sociopaths. We too resent the attempts by administrators to turn the academy into another business.

    Peace

  • Slocum says:

    Redleg, the turn to educating business students in ethics and sustainability is a new one and still pretty thin gruel. (I've taught in two business schools in Europe and a university in the US with plenty of business students.)
    But you're right that it certainly is not about MBAs literally. Metaphorically, the notion that universities should be run like businesses (as if there was this Platonic ideal of a business in the first place we could look at for our principles), can be referred to by "MBAs." But it would be better to be a lot more specific–the problem is a political project of neoliberalism that sees marketization, even where markets are not just, efficient, or otherwise sustainable, as a tool of public policy. Markets are the way "our political masters" want to govern us, even if that means that goods that are not best delivered by markets (like most education) are forced into that institutional model.

    tldr: MBAs or not, university administrators are cancer with legs.

  • Nate says:

    I'm a CSU alum who did a year in 2001-2002 before personal issues forced me to put college on hold until 2006, when I returned. Even in that short time it felt like the university had changed dramatically, although part of that no doubt was simply how much things had changed nationally. Seemed like there had been a slide toward this kind of ridiculous thinking well underway at that point.

    I remember the climbing wall going up in the rec center and laughing with my friends over what a stupid, pointless use of funds it was. At least some money went in the right direction, such as a gleaming new psychology building going up. Naturally finished a few weeks after I graduated. I've heard it's nice, though.

  • Townsend Harris says:

    "The science of trying to define what high school kids look for when choosing a college is the closest thing to alchemy that one can get paid to do these days."
    Here's one definition for Enrollment Deans: a safe place to study in a sophisticated town or city for closeted LGBT kids escaping from the provinces.
    Where do I send the invoice?

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