I am involved, in fact I'm Speaker Pro Temp. Let me tell you something, the president couldn't "sway" anything from not being voted on. Any Senator can make a motion to adopt a resolution whenever they want and the president doesn't have speaking rights in Senate. Sure, he could veto a general business resolution, but he that can be overridden if the Senator support is strong enough. Somehow, though, I doubt too many students are going to be voting for an increase in their fees no matter how you slice it.
$40 a semester for athletics, on top of a 3% tuition increase, housing increase, parking increase and food increase. The $40 by itself is not a large amount in the grand scheme of things, but as mentioned earlier, if you divide the 5.5 million that goes from the general fund to athletics into approximately 20K students they're already paying $267 a year towards athletics on average (full time student share should be higher, but $267 works as a general figure). The only thing increasing fees will do is push more students towards places like OTC for their first few years of school, decreasing freshmen and sophomore enrollments and ultimately hurting the University. And there's nothing that says if it did get voted in that the BOG wouldn't just say reduce general funds dollars by an equal amount which would eliminate any overall athletics budget increase that was the goal anyway. Especially since the athletic department has been given a goal of reducing the support from the institution into the budget. The only intelligent way to increase the athletics budget is to increase revenues, get them in the door any way you can. That's obviously easier said than done, I know some people thought that ORU markets better than MSU, but I was at the MSU/ORU game at it was a ghost town despite the email blasts that their full time employee does.
Over 75% of students applied for financial aid. Average percent of need met is 66%. In my opinion most of these kids should be happy to pay $45 to upgrade the athletics programs. In today's world it is the main source of prestige for whatever thats worth.
As much as I love the Bears and want to support them in any way I personally can, I have to entirely disagree with this. The main source of prestige for any college is the quality of education. I mean, if athletics were the main source of prestige then Ivy League schools would be irrelevant and no one who go to them. I would agree with a previous post that I would be fine with, say, a $20 per semester fee (or maybe a $10 one) that would supplant some university funds to athletics, but not one that just goes on top of it. Face it, a small student fee is not going to all of a sudden move the university to FBS or something. For more money to come in our programs would have to win, and I'm talking about football as well as the other sports. Without football victories how can we justify moving up? "Ya, we're getting crushed at this level, so we're going up another one." No, money does not create wins, wins create money.
I'm still trying to grasp the fact that the same people who bitch about high ticket prices are trying to push the burden off on to other folks. Why not let the people who go to sporting events pay for the stuff we want.... You guys are just a bunch of liberal nuts....
You're right...it's not going to move us to FBS, but an extra $1.6 million a year would go a long way toward buying things like, say, stadium lights, student seating, ribbon boards, or locker rooms. You get things like that done using this kind of money and suddenly you're eliminating things from the "Need" list and more focus can be placed on the "Want" list. And yes, quality education is/should be the main reason kids pick a school, but when it comes down to choosing between 2-3 colleges that are very similar, I'll put my money on the school that gets the most exposure through athletics. Successful athletics programs not only create exposure through the teams, but they create increased alumni involvement. You want to see exposure in KC and St. Louis? Make a bowl game or go to the NCAA tournament every once in a while.
Again...we're complaining about $40 a semester? Maybe we can convince 80% of the kids not to go to the bars once a semester so they can pay for it. Totally ridiculous that this is even an issue. I guarantee most of the people that are/would be b*tchng about an additional fee would be waiting in line to get their tickets for a big game if we had regular contenders. If this thing ever were to pass, I'd be more than happy to increase my donations by $80 a year and I'm not even that liberal.
I mean if we could use that student money to help elevate our programs: Regular NCAA tournament appearances and bowl teams as a result of much-needed funding for facility improvements that would lure in better recruits, more fans, more support. I mean if we could use that student money to help elevate our programs. Regular NCAA tournament appearances and bowl teams could be possible...and could happen with much-needed funding for facility improvements that would lure in better recruits, winning teams, more fans, more support. Athletic programs are sometimes the face of a university. They are often a way to open the front door to fans with no ties to a school - a reason for students, non students, and faculty to assemble in one place at one time. If you have the financial support, it serves as a direct avertisement for the school, its facilities, and its sense of community. Jliehr is right...advertising is easier said than done. Especially when it's effective advertising. In my opinion, the main problems we see stem from several issues, in no particular order: 1) the University's pressure to create revenue from an existing (but static) fan base through assessments and ticket prices, 2) on-field performance issues combined with much-needed repairs/improvements, 3) Sporadic student/alumni support, 4) Ticket distribution, 5) Limited big-dollar corporate sponsorship, 6) Inefficient advertising marketing, 7) Lack of transparency, 8) Disproportionate media coverage in the Kansas City/St. Louis areas The great thing about these issues is that they're all opportunities - and in the case of ticket distribution, it appears there are some things going on behind the scenes. There are ways to fix these problems and repair the foundation we need to build upon. I'm not insinuating that we need to place the onus on current and future MSU students, I just think that we need to make sure that the entire University community (students, faculty, and alumni) is united if we're going to get things done correctly. Sports fans or not, everyone tied to the University should realize that athletic programs provide opportunities to the student athlete, the school, the community and the region. You can argue academics all you want, but throwing in an extra $40 a semester from the student population would help make us competitive with peer institutions who have had student athletic fees for decades. I wish there was some sort of a collaboration with using our award-winning marketing department, but I'm also in favor of the University hiring an agency to start a full-scale marketing campaign (since the school can't seem to do it in-house). Not sure wht Nelligan is doing, but it doesn't appear to be marketing.
Add U North Dakota to the list of schools with better facilities than ours: This is getting pretty pathetic, ADKM.
Obviously I am coming in at the tail end of this thread. I am trying to avoid reading through 7 pages....is stadium renovations actually something being discussed?
If we were FBS...I probably wouldn't even care if we were good. Just being on that level would be so much better than the current situation.
Students at some schools don't mind paying $45 a semester to help out the athletic department. http://espn.go.com/college-football...on-cougars-students-vote-favor-45-stadium-fee
I certainly think students would be willing to pay a temporary fee for an athletics purpose, like renovating the student bleachers in plaster. I mean, that's how the rec center is being built. I don't think students would be willing to vote and pass a permanent fee that just goes to athletics in general. I will once again reiterate that many students I have talked to would be willing to listen if the proposed fee was somewhere in the range of 10 or 20 dollars a semester. The 50 dollar proposals I've seen, though, would NEVER be accepted by students. That is a fact.
Asking for more money for athletics when the University is facing a large cut from the state (11 million dollars) and is going to increase tuition fairly significantly. Missouri will be asking for a 7.5% increase in Columbia, 8.2% at UMSL and 9% at UMR (Science and Tech). MSU was planning on asking for around 3.6% when they thought Nixon was going to only recommend 5% cuts, but are reconsidering now that his cuts were 12.5%. Students are looking at yet another $350 per semester just from tuition.
I know the phrase "if you build it, they will come" was popularized by Hollywood, but this kind of discussion about stadium improvements for a program that hasn't been to the playoffs in 20 years, much less above .500 in I don't now how long, seems rather pointless. I'm just sayin', shouldn't the team try WINNING first, THEN we all could talk about stadium expansion and moving into the FBS?! I'd also presume that asking the students to pay for further expansion, and MORE empty seats, seems futile as well. JQH isn't full most nights either and that program is light years ahead of football! I think that's why MSU added another FBS game over a home game because of MORE MONEY. "Just win baby" and then these kinds of discussions would seem more relevant....
Kind of a tough situation. You need better facilities to win, you need to win to get better facilities.
