The Impending Athletics Deficit

For several years, Athletics has prided itself on the fact that it usually balances it budget.  This does not mean that it is self-supporting.  On the contrary, it takes more than $6 million in general fund money, and more than $700,000 in student fees each year to keep the program's books balanced.  

However, as we predicted would happen, increased costs related to retaining Division I-A status are pushing the Athletics Division into a deficit.  In its proposal to raise student fees submitted to the Campus Fee Advisory Committee (CFAC), the Division of Athletics admitted that the �bulk of the projected shortfall relates to the 2004 Division I-A requirements of 15,000 average home attendance� (Twining 2003).

Every dollar that may be diverted from academic to athletics is one less dollar available for meeting the primary mission of the university, which is to educate its students.  In a time when SJSU faces budget cuts of $20 to $30 million, the Division of Athletics simply cannot be permitted to increase its share of the university budget.  There is, of course, a simple solution to this problem:  the university should abandon its campaign to retain Division I-A status.