A reporter for the El Paso Times describes the University of Texas at El Paso, a school that’s sort of the moral equivalent of British Petroleum — only it’s trying to make its mess even worse.
… [U]niversities with high numbers of low-income students and unremarkable sports teams take more money from [their] students — in fees and in diverting money away from educational programs — to subsidize athletics programs.
The University of Texas at El Paso falls into the trend.
… UTEP diverted $774 per student into athletics in the year 2008-09 — the third-highest in Conference USA and significantly higher than the national average of $506.
Of 99 schools [recently] studied, UTEP had the highest percentage of low-income student in Division 1, with more than 62 percent of the students receiving financial aid.
… In April, UTEP students rejected the creation of a new athletic fund that would have more than doubled the amount UTEP athletics received from tuition and fees…
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:51AM
This is criminal.
One of the PhD recipients at our place recently was from UTEP. Let’s just say that she did not come from a privileged economic background.
Bleeding students at an institution like UTEP is unconscionable. UTEP has a mission and obviously they can attract some students who are capable of obtaining a PhD at a division one research institution.
Sad…
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:08AM
UTEP is, of course, the home of football coach Mike Price, whose chance to be football coach at Alabama, the Harvard of Tuscaloosa, was tragically cut short by a tryst with destiny (stripper Destiny Boudreaux, that is).
June 5th, 2010 at 4:55AM
Universities do not want to admit that having rabid alumni and hangers-on is a requirement for having fan and financial support for an athletic program.
The UTEP students cannot attend some other university. Thus, they have little interest in athletics, Greeks, etc. But the administrators at UTEP feel the need to create an appearance that UTEP is just like UT-Austin.