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Message: [QUOTE="upstater, post: 4658082, member: 153"] First off, scholarships are not the biggest cost. Far from. Less than 5% of these athletic budgets. But if you understood university finances, you wouldn't ask these questions. Each department (and therefore each faculty member) is funded by a head count. How many majors do you have? How many minors? How many enroll in your classes? Any support to each department, even when it comes to salaries, is determined by that head count. This is why every department is in competition for students. It's not a good system, but that's how it works. It is VERY real money. And you have to add instructors for athletes of course since athletes are a sizeable part of any student body from smalls schools to big schools. This is especially relevant because schools CAP classes in order to rise in the USNWR rankings. If it weren't for the class caps, you could make an argument that there could be unlimited space in each class (even though this would degrade the class engagement with students). So, to answer, scholarships are a small part of the AD budget, and secondly, it is real money any way you cut it. If you docked every department $$ for teaching athletes, those departments would be in the hole. I know many schools silo athletes into majors, so I suppose there could be a major somewhere that is barely serviced, like North Carolina did. But assuming players fulfilled all their general requirements and then have a selection of majors, it is real money. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach