$EC football...

[FAIRTIDES]

Michigan: $240 million
Texas: $250 million

Upstater:

I can read a publicly traded corp's Annual Report, 10K or 10Q with reasonable assurance because the auditors sign-off on the numbers and the fact that the "Financials" are based on Standard Accounting Practice (SAP). Public Colleges and Universities seem to use accounting to build clouds and smoke screens that hide what goes on underneath the top page of the Income/Expense (not P & L) Statement. Is there a standard format for this stuff?

 

[upstater]

Upstater:

I can read a publicly traded corp's Annual Report, 10K or 10Q with reasonable assurance because the auditors sign-off on the numbers and the fact that the "Financials" are based on Standard Accounting Practice (SAP). Public Colleges and Universities seem to use accounting to build clouds and smoke screens that hide what goes on underneath the top page of the Income/Expense (not P & L) Statement. Is there a standard format for this stuff?

No standard format, but I was just using the DOE page at USA Today to get a breakdown of revenues/expenses.

Other than that, I read the article in the Ann Arbor newspaper and the Daily Texan which stated how much debt the schools are responsible for buildout of facilities. I then pulled up the Michigan Athletic Departments non-DOE budget in which they state right away that they are paying $2 million a year to defray the cost of the recent buildout.

So, on the one hand, you can look at the info at USA Today to see how the budget is reported to the DOE.

But then the schools themselves provide a more extensive breakdown. For instance, this: http://www.regents.umich.edu/meetings/06-11/2011-06-X-13.pdf

IndyStar used to report the revenues and expenses by sport up until 2010, but then they wiped their database clean and it only goes to 2004 now. It doesn't really matter though because a school like Louisville includes a bunch of stuff as revenues under basketball (contributions, royalties, etc.) that the vast majority of schools list as AD revenues, so people always say that UL basketball is the most profitable around.

 

[J187Money]

As long as you are dealing with economically challenged kids there will always be this issue, no matter if you give everyone a 2k stipend or not. Some of the kids just want to take their girl out every now and then. Some of them are going to walk around with their hands out no matter what they are given. Human nature. And there will always be someone around with their wallet open...

Unsolvable problem.

 

[FAIRTIDES]

No standard format, but I was just using the DOE page at USA Today to get a breakdown of revenues/expenses.

Other than that, I read the article in the Ann Arbor newspaper and the Daily Texan which stated how much debt the schools are responsible for buildout of facilities. I then pulled up the Michigan Athletic Departments non-DOE budget in which they state right away that they are paying $2 million a year to defray the cost of the recent buildout.

So, on the one hand, you can look at the info at USA Today to see how the budget is reported to the DOE.

But then the schools themselves provide a more extensive breakdown. For instance, this: http://www.regents.umich.edu/meetings/06-11/2011-06-X-13.pdf

IndyStar used to report the revenues and expenses by sport up until 2010, but then they wiped their database clean and it only goes to 2004 now. It doesn't really matter though because a school like Louisville includes a bunch of stuff as revenues under basketball (contributions, royalties, etc.) that the vast majority of schools list as AD revenues, so people always say that UL basketball is the most profitable around.

Thank you. The UofM Budget document, which includes prior yr "actuals" makes sense, at least. It looks like a document one would find anywhere, in any business. Two things I noticed:
1} The adherence to something called "Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 33 (“GASB 33”)." I wonder if all public schools do the same?
2) It is mentioned that Price WaterHouseCoopers audits both the "AD revenue source fund" ("Operating Fund") and the combo financial documents that reflect AD financial results. I wonder if all public schools use hoity-toidy accounting firms like PWC?
But, in the case of UofM, there is an accounting "standard" and a professional, 3rd party audit. It's believable.

 

[ktuck911]

I hope nobody's really surprised here... The U ( Univ of Miami, FL ... my favorite college football team prior to me changing my allegiance to my alma mater UCONN ) did.. The guy that was involved got locked up last year becaus of Ponzi scheme that went wrong ... He spilled the beans... Everything ended up being swept under the rug...

 

[FAIRTIDES]

In 2011/2012 academic year, the UConn athletic department had approx $10.75 million budgeted for athletic scholarships.

I think to solve all the problems, it would be pretty simple actually, and I already wrote about it. Make all that money, on a yearly basis, liquid, cash equivalent available to the students. The unfortunate thing, is that most institutions, wouldn't be able to do it, because they don't have enough cash flow to do it. I wouldn't go as far as I wrote before, about making student's responsible for actually paying the bills, and cashing out the funds, but I would definitely want to see the clear paper trail. The athletic scholarship budget is X amount ($10.75 mill in 2011/2012 for UConn)

Open Johnny B. Goode's athletic scholarship file, and right there, deposit Johnny's share of that $10.75 mill) (approx $125k deposited into X account on Y date for the academic year), and just like anybody's bank statements, ...... Z amount coming out on this day for tuition expenses. A, B, C amounts coming out for books/room and board fees, student fees, etc. etc....on so/so date.

To my knowledge, this is not how scholarship funding is accounted for in university settings. THat $10.75 mill, in UConn's case, to my knowledge(which may be totally wrong) is basically treated as a line item that is transfered and manipulated around in budgets and accounting, but is not liquid to actual cash asset.

IF schools were to do it thithe way I describe, it would be easy to work a stipend into it, and retain amateur status as much as it is now in theory, it would simply be another line item, in the amount of money that initially got deposited in each player's spending account, each year.


Unless an athletic department, and a university in general, is really sucking wind with management, finances, academic grants and funding, tuition, admissions, and athletic department revenue, you're not going to know if the university is really hurting financially......because it's all just accounting gymnastics anyway - and how the higher ups decide they want things to look for the agencies that they need to report financial things like that to, within the rules for reporting.

Carl:
I'm no Accountant, but it seems to me you are suggesting the conversion of a mostly non-cash item reporting requirement into a cash "hog." Maybe "Upstater" can tell me why I'm wrong, but the financial impact of an additional body is probably de minimis in terms of incremental costs. A class is already available and being taught by a professor/instructor. It seems all the infrastructure necessary to support a scholarship is in place. If I'm correct, I'd have to argue against your suggestion; vehemently.

Don't you think your money management idea would result in a number of embezzlement indictments?

 

[upstater]

Carl:
I'm no Accountant, but it seems to me you are suggesting the conversion of a mostly non-cash item reporting requirement into a cash "hog." Maybe "Upstater" can tell me why I'm wrong, but the financial impact of an additional body is probably de minimis in terms of incremental costs. A class is already available and being taught by a professor/instructor. It seems all the infrastructure necessary to support a scholarship is in place. If I'm correct, I'd have to argue against your suggestion; vehemently.

Don't you think your money management idea would result in a number of embezzlement indictments?

There's actually real money involved with each body.

We count bodies. I'm responsible for a certain # of students each and every semester. Money comes into the department based on that number. Depending on the discipline, the profs labor increases with each body. As a general rule, a class that requires research projects and papers from the students tops out at around 50. If it's a 50+ lecture with papers and projects, then assistants are brought in. If students are filling out scantron sheets, then perhaps the number of bodies in the class is limitless (knowing of course that there can be little interaction with faculty in such an arrangement).

My minimum is 25 but they may raise it to 30. If a class doesn't get the minimum, it doesn't "make" (i.e. gets canceled). I then jump into a survey course (i.e. +50 to 200) which is already scheduled and I take a couple research assistants already assigned. This is a net loss for the dept. for obvious reasons (2 Full-time profs doing the labor of 1). We get money in the department for each student, especially at the graduate level. This money pays for raises and expenses (travel, search committees, etc.). At the grad level, the money comes more directly and more or less operates as a profit. There's an incentive system at work for profs to attract more students. But there are also caps and minimums.

This literally means that you can't simply add bodies to already existing courses since it impacts the budget.

If you're going to do that, then by implication you are adding to the responsibilities of faculty and decreasing your cost-per-student. Faculty tend to notice these things, especially those who are interested in research. The caps and minimums increased at my school by 75% since the financial meltdown.

Unless you assume that faculty have an infinite amount of time to devote to students, then any calculation like this is going to be problematic.

Then again, one could easily argue that there is little labor intensive work in a 1 week intersession course (the likes of which contribute to Kentucky's fantastic APR) and thus, these student-athletes are actually receiving a substandard education on the cheap, so that indeed, they might be given a stipend after deducting the meager amount it takes to staff such a course.

One reason this would be problematic is that students in the Humanities pay the same tuition as students in Engineering. This makes Humanities course more profitable if they're popular. Do that mean Humanities students get a rebate because expenses associated with scientific research are high?

 

[FAIRTIDES]

There's actually real money involved with each body.

We count bodies. I'm responsible for a certain # of students each and every semester. Money comes into the department based on that number. Depending on the discipline, the profs labor increases with each body. As a general rule, a class that requires research projects and papers from the students tops out at around 50. If it's a 50+ lecture with papers and projects, then assistants are brought in. If students are filling out scantron sheets, then perhaps the number of bodies in the class is limitless (knowing of course that there can be little interaction with faculty in such an arrangement).

My minimum is 25 but they may raise it to 30. If a class doesn't get the minimum, it doesn't "make" (i.e. gets canceled). I then jump into a survey course (i.e. +50 to 200) which is already scheduled and I take a couple research assistants already assigned. This is a net loss for the dept. for obvious reasons (2 Full-time profs doing the labor of 1). We get money in the department for each student, especially at the graduate level. This money pays for raises and expenses (travel, search committees, etc.). At the grad level, the money comes more directly and more or less operates as a profit. There's an incentive system at work for profs to attract more students. But there are also caps and minimums.

This literally means that you can't simply add bodies to already existing courses since it impacts the budget.

If you're going to do that, then by implication you are adding to the responsibilities of faculty and decreasing your cost-per-student. Faculty tend to notice these things, especially those who are interested in research. The caps and minimums increased at my school by 75% since the financial meltdown.

Unless you assume that faculty have an infinite amount of time to devote to students, then any calculation like this is going to be problematic.

Then again, one could easily argue that there is little labor intensive work in a 1 week intersession course (the likes of which contribute to Kentucky's fantastic APR) and thus, these student-athletes are actually receiving a substandard education on the cheap, so that indeed, they might be given a stipend after deducting the meager amount it takes to staff such a course.

One reason this would be problematic is that students in the Humanities pay the same tuition as students in Engineering. This makes Humanities course more profitable if they're popular. Do that mean Humanities students get a rebate because expenses associated with scientific research are high?

Thank you. I think any more questions/answers will get us both banished, or worse,