Something to be proud of -- LSU Athletic Program to support academics

fricking horrible

Cool, I guess, but how does this help me get season tickets?

Sorry, still a little bit upset about missing out. I guess I will have to sell my house for a big TAF donation.

Enjoy!! All you lucky bastards...

I'm somewhat skeptical. On the one hand, I certainly believe that the athletic department should butress and support the broader educational mission of LSU. On he other hand, it irks me to see LSU athletics being utilized as a slush fund to offset and camoflouge the gross fiscal mismanagement of the state government.

Moreover, this almost certainly portends even more of the ticket price and mandatory donation increases that tend to dilute the atmosphere in Tiger Stadium.

I love how Jenkins is acting like the athletic side called them up and said, " hey, how would you feel about 7.2 million dollars to offset the shitty budget problems plaguing our broken higher Ed structure."

I called back when the Athletic department first handed over it's profits to the university. I said then that future LSU chancellors would seize on that precedent and never let it go.

And I don't really have a problem with the AD helping out the university. I just hope this doesn't negatively impact future athletic projects.

UGA an UF have athletic sides independent from the academic side regarding budgetary matters. Those are also two of the best academic schools in the conference. Explain that to me broseph.

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Instead of dealing with the real problem

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That's the problem. Siphoning money from the LSU AD to camoflouge fiscal mismanagement discourages solving the underlying structural problems that plague LSU academics. It's a stop-gap measure.

I think it is a very important move. People please remember that without the university, there would be no athletic department. The school is really hurting for funding, and if football can offer the school a way to keep classes, teachers, and others in the LSU community, I am very proud to be part of that. This is a positive PR move as well as a much needed funding source for LSU.

I'm conflicted on this.

On the one hand, I want LSU to be successful in all aspects, and the school has to do something in order to make up for the shite sandwich that is being given to it by the governor and the legislature.

On the other hand, I don't want us to not be able to hire the same quality of coaches or keep up with facilities improvements. I assume that TAF will be able to handle a lot of those issues. I'm not overly familiar with how big of a profit our athletic department currently turns on average in the last few years but if memory serves it was a good bit. I think ultimately if there are sports that suffer for this it will be the minor sports. Football will be insulated as much as possible.

It's a tough situation for everyone involved and we can thank our state government for it. Living in Texas now it's amazing how well UT and A&M are doing because of the permanent education fund that was set up with oil profits. Louisiana should have done the same decades ago.

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Instead of acting like Texas and pouring tax revenue into the flagship, we spread our money thin to a bunch of crappy directional schools in our state. This is the same shitty economic principle st work.

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I agree with this, somewhat. The problem is not community colleges though, but the ambition of erstwhile community colleges to be full-throated universities.