Here in the United States, sports are a critical part of a person’s school life that follows them through grade school and all the way up to college. With tuition costs rising alarmingly, we have been forced to step back and ask ourselves where our money is going. This has become a heated debate as heads turn from the educational front to the sports front, and people have really started to ponder just how much of their hard-earned money is going to their school’s Friday night lights; the answer is more than it should. 

To start locally, let’s take a look at the University of Michigan. The school makes 17.1 million dollars a year according to the 2021-2022 sports schedule in surplus. When you put into perspective that their teachers only make $150,000-$220,000 a year, that is a red flag. Teachers at a big institution like U of M should be getting more than that, right? Well, when you look at the fact that the students pay $52,000 on average to attend that school, the teachers definitely deserve more of the money than just three to four kids’ tuitions. 

This number is enormous considering that the revenue the school rakes in towers most universities, especially as a university that also takes private funding. This is extremely messed up and shows you just how unprofessional the money is being positioned at bigger schools verses how it should be distributed. If a school can bring in that much money from in-state tuition alone, the amount of money they have to use at any time is copious, and it does not make sense that with all of that money going around that they can pay the faculty so little with earnings so high. It makes you step back and see just how stupid universities are and how they are willing to do anything for money. 

If you do not believe me saying that this spending trend is becoming an issue, let’s take a look at a school that truly shows what it means to be in debt due to spending more money than it has. UCLA logged that for the year 2020, the university was officially $62.5 million dollars in debt. This number is mind-blowing to me considering that the school charges $38.5 thousand a year in-state and only pay their teachers $157 million annually. When you look at the amount the school could bring in and benefit from compared to what it has to now deal with being in debt, it especially makes you question how schools like UCLA make it in one of the biggest sports platforms in the country.

Now, you may argue that schools like UCLA join leagues like the Big Ten for the foot traffic and revenue, but when you look at how far in debt this school sank for just one year, it is clear that the school’s numbers don’t add up and that something seriously wrong is going on behind that scenes that we can’t sugar coat. The fact that these schools don’t get backlash for these tactics is completely incomprehensible to me and truly concerns me for the kids going broke getting an education just so their school can make more room in its stadium for its random fans. 

Overall, it is baffling that big schools around the country can spend so much money on broadcasting a ball being thrown around a field when their professors are going underpaid and students are paying far too much. Colleges spend far too much money on their athletics, and it does not take a rocket scientist to see that something needs to be done before universities get too much power.