LFN: Deflating The Chronicle of Higher Ed's "Boom" in FCS Costs

[Lehigh Football Nation]

http://lehighfootballnation.blogspot.com/2011/06/deflating-chronicle-of-higher-eds-boom.html


It's amazing to me how statistics are so frequently presented to attempt to "shock and awe" the viewer.

Today, it's the Chronicle of Higher Ed's turn to mislead using statistics:


If you haven’t seen it, you should check out Libby Sander and Andrea Fuller’s piece this week highlighting the spending patterns in lesser-known Division I programs. The story found that nearly a third of the 125 athletic departments that compete just below the NCAA’s elite level increased their expenditures by more than 40 percent during a recent five-year period. Public universities, many of them grappling with overall financial cuts, had some of the fastest-growing athletic budgets.

It sounds shocking - until you analyze the situation for, say, about five minutes.

The Knight Commission and Inside Higher Ed attempt to make the case that athletics spending grew "nearly twice as fast as academic spending." I expose their conclusions as misleading data that could be disproven in about five minutes.

[401ks]

xsmileyclapx

[Lehigh Football Nation]

COHE has adding this support documentation for their flawed thesis on expenses:

http://chronicle.com/article/Sortable-Table-Biggest/127977/?key=HTlyJ1VobiBIZH8wMG0TZmoAOHdpOE52YiJOb3l9blpUE Q%3D%3D

Some of the schools with the (shock!) biggest percent increase of spending is Winston-Salem State (who abandonded their dream to go to D-I), SIU (building new venue), Bryant (transitioning to D-I), Lamar and Georgia State (building new FCS programs). None can be considered renegade programs - and there ought to be a great debate as to whether they should even be included, since only SIU in the group I mentioned were D-I FCS for the entire five year period.

I responded with this:


Football Championship Subdivision schools, unlike their Bowl Subdivision counterparts, have as their largest budget item financial aid for scholarships. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume that when tuition increases, athletic scholarship expenditures will largely keep pace with those changes.

Seen in that light, the fact that more than half of the athletics expenditures increased slower than the rate of tuition inflation should be a cause for applause.

Trust me when I say I will NOT let shoddy reporting get by on this topic.

[LBPop]

Sometimes it's lazy reporting; sometimes it's about sensationalism; and sometimes it's about deliberately misleading reporting to advance a particular opinion or position. Whatever the reason, when a reporter starts with the conclusion and then selectively assembles data to support that conclusion they should be called on it right away. Thanks, LFN. Of course this reporter will probably win an award...xbangx