Big Cat God Productions

The Ivory Tower of Cards

What happens when the castle of cards collapse? Who will be punished when bankruptcies, mass firings and mass closures across the nation happen? What impact would a widespread collapse of an industry have on the economy? On the local communities? On you, a random person on the street?

The average person might know of the Trump administration plans to eliminate the Department of Education1. You’ve might heard of the administration shakedowns of Columbia2, Harvard3 and others4. You might know of the millions of dollars in research grants taken away5. An informed observer might bring up the expected “enrollment cliff”6. Academics tend to point to “an issue of priorities” where Athletics have funding while academic units whither7. The most commonly known issue on higher education is student loans and the high debt a whole generation is starting adult life with8.

All of which are mere symptoms of the rotten financial system that supports all of higher education. While it started with then California governor Ronald Reagan9, the systematic defunding of higher education has been perpetrated by both Republicans and Democrats alike. The reason is simple. Public universities are usually the largest budget item in a state budget10, in a world where voters want fewer taxes and “balanced budgets”, cuts have to be made. Undercutting higher education is an easy sell. Most voters have either already been to college (and so have their children) or will never go. They have no interaction with research or extension programs that support agricultural production, health initiatives, environmental policies, etc. It is easy to say “Why am I paying for [INSERT PREFERRED DEROGATORY ADJECTIVE] to go party in college?” It is even easier to knee cap the institutions. What could possibly happen?

In response over the past 40-ish years institutions had to diversify and increase their revenues. As a direct result they have increased tuition, enrollment and cut costs (namely faculty and services) dramatically. Donations and the donors themselves are more important than ever. The federal government has been papering over the gaps with Pell grants, research grants, FAFSA and student loans.

The result, at the institutional level, is an erosion on education quality and devaluement of that education. At industry scale, it led to the demise of smaller institutions and a shift towards a “business” approach to administration. Schools started investing in lifestyle to differentiate themselves from their competitors. The impact of the “college experience” focus is two-fold. It creates life-long donors (big and small) and helps with recruiting. The new dorms and fancy buildings that go up are a product of this trend. Donors love having their names on things and not, say, covering the payroll of the Psychology department staff.

A crucial part of the college experience is college athletics. The argument goes like this. “Athletics is the front porch of the university”. “Athletics gives the university untold bazillion dollars in free advertisement”. “Athletics brings donors in. Not only for Athletics for everything!” “We have to compete at this level because our rival school does”.

Most of these are both true and absolutely misleading. For large universities, college athletics is better understood as a marketing cost for large institutions. For small institutions, the teams bring in actual tuition paying students that otherwise wouldn’t under the guise of competing in college athletics.

It is understood that spikes in enrollment after a successful season (the Doug Flutie effect) are ephemeral. Most institutions look outright bad by comparison, since someone has to lose. Being a perennial loser is not exactly a great first impression. That is also not relevant to enrollment, but *is* relevant to individual donors. Speaking of donors, particularly large donors, their preferences are clear. They want on-field success, their name on the stadium and on TV. They love to own athletes and make admins genuflect and kiss their rings. If you removed athletics, the loss in donations would be huge in gross totals. However, the impact in academic units would be much smaller in total numbers and paradoxically more consequential to them11.

On top of all the shifts in higher education, College Athletics is also undergoing massive changes. Long story short, a legal settlement (House12) allowed/required schools to pay their student-athletes. In the previous years, a different ruling (O’Bannon13) made legal/required players to be paid for their name, image and likeness, colloquially referred as NIL. House sets up a ceiling of $20.5 million for the departments. There are many outstanding questions that will likely be tested through further lawsuits14. In addition, rich donors in rich programs will not be satisfied with a measly $20 million budget. They will keep paying players on the side. The true value of these contracts will be nebulous at best. House has caused ripples across all levels and budgets. Athletic departments are restructuring, NIL administration companies have been incorporated into the departments or reinvented.

The shifts and the large sums being publicized – $4 million for Carson Beck to play quarterback at Miami, $1 million for NiJaree Canady to pitch for Texas Tech, for example15 – revived the old debate about athletic expenses. This time, the detractors of athletics have an unlikely ally, Athletic Departments’ staff. The overworked, and barely paid (or unpaid) people that make the day-to-day of college athletics possible. They include tutors, exclusive academic advisors in addition to trainers, medical staff and coaches.

Sports fans have long labeled faculty that criticize the presence of college athletics as cranks, uninformed or delusional. Now, they and their friends in the industry are being affected by the same forces and sports fans are asking “Is that 3rd string quarterback really worth $200,000?”

The reality is that College Athletics only makes financial sense in a world where

  • a) education is less important than college experience lifestyle;
  • b) institutions are starved for funding;
  • c) the costs are minimal;
  • d) TV revenue, event attendance and public attention is high and diffused among a wide range of institutions.

I already outlined how points a) and b) are true. Point c) has historically relied on student-athletes not being paid and not being employees16. Point d) is the hardest to explain. TV revenue increased over the past 40 years, but consolidation has created wider chasms in revenue between large brands and small ones. Attention and attendance have also been consolidated around the larger brands. Why would anyone sit in the freezing cold to watch Bowling Green play Akron when they could watch 15 games (including Bowling Green-Akron) at home17?

As costs soar and attention decreases is it still worth for a have-not to keep playing in this field? What is the more reasonable action? Should you keep hemorrhaging money for little return? Or should you consider dropping to a lower level of competition where costs and revenues are smaller18? Should you eliminate athletics completely? What would it cost to drop a sport or two? Can you retain donation levels for your core purpose (education) with these changes? Refusing to consider any of these questions is dereliction of duty. On the other hand, should you double down and spend even more on athletics even as you cut whole departments19?

The real way to solve all these problems is to establish fully funded, tuition free public universities supported by strong federal scholarship system for private school students. That would cost trillions of dollars and a lot of political capital. The ramifications would reach everywhere in the country. A immediate increase in college bound students will reverse the “enrollment cliff” and save small community universities. More well trained workers, unburdened by debt, will supercharge the economy for decades. Funded schools will generate more and better public benefiting technologies that will increase quality of life.

None of this is forthcoming. It will remain a dream while the castle of cards crumbles. All because it could upset the societal caste structure. When (not if) higher education finally dies, the economic impact will be felt by everyone. The poorer you are now, the bigger the impact. We are in for a prolonged period of misery and hopelessness. The next time you feel like celebrating that Harvard is getting what it deserves, remember that is only the tip of the spear and you are the target beneath all the institutional armor.

  1. https://apnews.com/article/trump-education-department-layoffs-closure-c7cddd1dbf310dadcd70e003d62a6df0 ↩︎
  2. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/25/nx-s1-5479240/columbia-trump-administration-settlement-details ↩︎
  3. https://apnews.com/article/harvard-trump-agreement-antisemitism-ivy-a84b88a8136a852aa305e508d012afb6 ↩︎
  4. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/us/politics/trump-universities-financial-penalties.html ↩︎
  5. https://grant-witness.us/ ↩︎
  6. https://www.npr.org/2025/01/08/nx-s1-5246200/demographic-cliff-fewer-college-students-mean-fewer-graduates ↩︎
  7. If you want to hit platinum on Linkedin, this is surefire post. ↩︎
  8. https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-statistics ↩︎
  9. https://newuniversity.org/2023/02/13/ronald-reagans-legacy-the-rise-of-student-loan-debt-in-america/ ↩︎
  10. https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/state-funding-and-college-costs-reviewing-the-evidence/ ↩︎
  11. A $100,000 donation to a department is the difference between paying a lecturer or not. Meanwhile the total donations to the school dropped by $50 million. ↩︎
  12. https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/45467505/judge-grants-final-approval-house-v-ncaa-settlement ↩︎
  13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Bannon_v._NCAA ↩︎
  14. Distribution will be unequal. Football will get the lion’s share and Men’s and Women’s will get 10-15% and all others will split the remaining 10-15%. There are many labor and Title IX questions that I am out of my depth to discuss. ↩︎
  15. The going rate for a backup running back at a Power 4 school is $100,000 a year. ↩︎
  16. Employment comes with a wide range of benefits and liability that exponentially increase costs. ↩︎
  17. College sports also competes with other forms of entertainment. Video games, streaming, etc are all more accessible and convenient. ↩︎
  18. In general there are six levels of competition: Within the NCAA: FBS (Division 1, highest football playing division), FCS (still Division 1 but separate lower football playing leagues), Mid-Majors (Division 1 non football institutions); Division II; Division III; and non-NCAA, mainly NAIA institutions. ↩︎
  19. Virginia Tech just announced a $229 million investient on its athletics support in part by the institution itself. In the mean time it closed a department to not pay the salary for a department head. https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/amid-coaching-search-virginia-tech-proposes-229-million-investment-into-athletics-over-four-years/ https://bov.vt.edu/assets/Minutes-March%2024-25,%202025-382.pdf ↩︎

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