Keep all sports; deficit’s not real

MORE IN (the May 9) paper about the University of New Mexico budget. Just a few thoughts ... to put this in perspective.

1.) There is no deficit, there is actually a substantial surplus. The figures in the Journal show UNM is counting as an expense $5,160,000 in “pooled grant in aid” — read scholarship costs. UNM has about 21,500 students; there are, according to this article, 245 athletic scholarships. Does anyone think the marginal cost of adding 245 people to classes and a campus that has around 100 times that many students really costs that? Of course it doesn’t. This is an internal accounting device that might be valid for accounting types but does not reflect real cost, which is probably close to zero. Eliminate this “cost” and a $1.9 million “deficit” just went to a $3.26 million surplus.

2.) Almost every college that has sports runs a deficit — particularly if they account like item No. 1. Only about 20 “power” schools make money. No one in the Mountain West Conference, which UNM is part of, makes money, and some, including, I hear, Air Force, “lose” a lot more. If you want to have athletics as a part of a college environment — and it is a part of a campus environment many students and alumni enjoy, and I would submit you almost have to offer sports to not appear to not be a real player — you have to subsidize it. To start from the proposition that sports must break even, as the press and I gather at least some UNM leaders do, is absurd.

3.) You can’t close the “deficit” by cutting sports. You probably can’t, as a practical matter, cut football, mens and womens basketball or baseball. To cover the “deficit” from the others you have to cut out half of them, using numbers in Journal article. (I) don’t see it happening.

Time to get real and accept that there will be some deficit — although, see above, only an accounting one, in fact there is a profit, enjoy it — and move on.

SAM HAAS Santa Fe