The Board of Regents meets this week in Rapid City to discuss, among other things, approving a $65-million football stadium for South Dakota State University.
According to the Regents' agenda packet, two thirds of the construction costs are for enclosed seating, the fancy executive suites that will bring in the bulk of new ticket revenue and allow local royalty to enjoy the gridiron spectacle with comforting glass walls to separate them from the hoi polloi and brisk October breeze.
$63 million of the project will come from bond sales, private donations already pledged, and a guarantee from the SDSU Foundation. SDSU wants the Regents to let them take another $2 million out of students' hides via a $1.75 fee on each academic credit. SDSU justifies this charge by moving the University Police Department HQ to the stadium and adding retail space.
A student taking 15 credits (and why aren't you taking at least that many credits? Get 'er done!) would pay $26.25 per semester, or $210 for a standard four-year full-time load.
So the more classes you take, the less time you have to go watch other people play sports, but the more you will pay for an athletic spectation palace.
Conservatives are huffing and puffing about having to buy health insurance policies under the Affordable Care Act that cover procedures they'll never use (a complaint I never heard them lodging against pre-ACA insurance; when's the last time an insurer let you buy a policy that covers just the one broken arm that you plan to suffer from falling in the bathroom next summer?). Will they huff and puff similarly on behalf of SDSU students having to pay for a football stadium they'll never use?
Increasing student debt increases credit card interest. That's how Sanford will recoup their huge contribution. Brookings Health Systems has also pledged $1M, which they'll gather by charging locals for hospital visits.
(Please don't waste your time looking for logic in this argument)
Most students throughout their time at SDSU will step foot into the new stadium. It'll be a great draw for new recruiting efforts, as well as a big update to the campus. A $210 per student fee over the course of 4 years isn't the worst way to round out private donations and foundation backing. While I would prefer that students pay as little as possible for their education, it is important that schools have the ability to create a good learning enviroment, if SDSU and it's leaders believe that's a stadium, perhaps it's time we replace the leaders with more academically minded folks or trust they have the students best interests in mind and let them fund it. How we fund and educate students at our state funded public institutions is an important political discussion but I am disappointed with your obvious party politic pandering in the last paragraph. Educating our students is more important than silly party antics.
How about an article on increasing the entrance requirements for public universities? A feeder program if applicants aren't ready for college (*Gasp* am I suggesting a SD high school graduate might not be academically ready for college?!) and a retention program that helps kids find what (if any) program they should really be in.
I'm a huge sports fan (I'm a part-time sports writer) but I'm having a tough time with this one. College is getting harder and harder for young people to afford and the regents want to do this? It's about prestige and I wonder if we can afford it.
Cory brings up a good point. Will the Republicans (a.k.a Tea Party) show the outrage that they've shown about the ACA? I doubt it.
You bring up a great point Owen. I don't know any Republicans(aka Tea Party) outside of the inner circle that is, who stands behind, beside or lines out with "Ol Harv" in any manner. Our university structure does seem to run loaded with the liberal bent who agree that any opportunity to fill their classrooms is a great way to continue their agenda.
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It's always about sports , the construction of monuments to themselves & not about an affordable useful education .
Fire one of those Board of Regents members and give the rest a pay cut, and we'll be able to afford the stadium they want to build.
Give students the option of paying athletic fees or not and the regents and administrators will find there is a majority who don't give a flying nickle for intercollegiate athletics.
Intercollegiate sports should be paid for by the businesses that sell a few extra bottles of beer, a few cups of coffee, and sandwiches because of the tax-wasting sports palaces or the motels that infect a few more people with bed-bug bites.
I disagree, part of the student fees means you essentially get season tickets. That little for a season ticket isn't bad, BHSU's is the same, and they send a fair amount to their athletic budget and they get bad athletics in poor facilities to watch them in.
Of what value is a season ticket for those who go to college to learn and don't give a rat's rear end for athletic events or jocks infesting the campus? Collegiate athletics waste thousands of dollars per four year student and their parents. It is an obscene ripoff for no good reason.
Do collegiate athletics at all give any balance, economically, to the academic side of life there?
NOT AGAIN! More millions for sports venues? After all, if you are trying to improve the nursing program, pharmacy, engineering, dairy science, etc, the first question any prospect would have is, "How big is your football stadium," and "Does it have skyboxes?" (sarcasm mode disengaged)
MN has a great deal of experience in pandering to athletics on several levels. In the past 5 years we've built a new football stadium and baseball stadium for U of MN. We've built a new baseball field for the Twins, and just broke ground on a new football stadium for the Vikings.
In every case it was about prestige and money. None of it was for the students and the community. I think that the U has about 25,000 students. Less than 10% go to football games. Maybe 1% attend baseball games. When I was a student at Northern in the early 70s, I'd guess attendance for football was more like 25%. Maybe that was due to the times or to the size of the school. Still, it's a small percentage of students who attend games at these expensive venues.
In fairness, the U's baseball field was in pretty crummy shape, but the venues for each of the other sports were perfectly serviceable. The dome was only 30 years old and saw lots of use by two pro teams, Vikings and Twins, and lots of college and highschool events.
The school officials who push for these new, expensive venues will always emphasize academic value. That's the only way they can sell it. If they said: "We want this new and expensive football field because our big athletic donors are demanding it. They want fancy suites to impress their neighbors and corporate guests. They also figure it will bring in more revenue and put SDSU in class with the big guys. These donors want to feel like big shots and this is what they want. Since they fund so much of our sports and take care of our football and basketball players, (Wink, wink.) we have to take care of them. Quid pro quo. In summary, gotta have it!"
Nah, I don't think that would sell. It's too honest and leaves no cover for anyone.
Intercollegiate facilities SDSU and SUSD desire total over $100 Million. That probably works out to about $300 per man, woman, and child in SD. I don't think it requires a genius to come up with a better plan for using that kind of money.