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What's Next: 'It's all a chess game' as small colleges weigh cuts to sports
Athletics programs can be enrollment drivers at these schools, causing
officials to look for ways other than eliminating teams to reduce
spending in this area.
Hallie Busta
June 9, 2020
Budget cuts brought on by the pandemic and the resulting economic
slowdown are expected to touch every corner of campus. Athletics — an
arm of the institution that carries special weight even at the smallest
four-year schools — is unlikely to escape them.
Already, colleges of all sizes are cutting programs, and higher ed
experts say even those that survive the austerity could be left with
fewer funds. But lobbing off entire teams has different implications
for small schools that rely on varsity athletics for a sizable chunk of
enrollment and to round out the campus experience.
"As we trace the impact of the decisions through the system, there
needs to be a consciousness around whether or not cuts will help
balance athletic department budgets and whether or not cuts are going
to negatively impact the core of the institution," said Ellen
Staurowsky, a professor of sports management at Drexel University.
"This is a very complicated terrain," she added.
One in six students at Division III schools are student-athletes,
according to NCAA data. That's compared to one in 10 students at
Division II schools at one in 23 at Division I institutions.
Susan Bassett, director of intercollegiate athletics and recreational
sports at Ithaca College, said the institution is "miles and miles
away" from cutting any sports programs. That's in part because of
ongoing cost-containment and restructuring efforts across the
institution, such as retirement incentives, that are helping manage
expenses.
She's also the president of the Liberty League, a Division III
athletics conference whose members are located in New York state. The
league is considering measures to help its schools reduce expenses in
light of the pandemic, including travel restrictions and a lower
membership fee, Bassett said.
Smaller colleges may be more inclined to save sports because they are
part of the university's enrollment strategy. Ithaca fields between 750
and 800 student-athletes each year and enrolls 6,200 undergraduates in
all.
"We feel like … our programs meet the needs and interests of our
community and contribute very favorably to our enrollment, to our
engagement, campus spirit and student activities," Bassett said.
Nearly 100 teams cut
But small colleges aren't immune to athletics cuts. St. Edward's
University, a Division II school in Texas that enrolls around 3,680
undergraduates, is eliminating six programs. Notre Dame de Namur
University, in California, announced it will no longer offer sports.
The cuts come as the university announced it would not enroll new
undergraduate students for the summer or fall terms and is helping
those among its 1,360 students continue their studies elsewhere if they
won't graduate by spring 2021. Just over half of those students are
undergraduates.
In all, nearly 100 teams have been eliminated during the pandemic as of
late May, though nearly half were from three schools that closed partly
because of financial pressures from the crisis, according to a count by
The Associated Press. Eighty-percent of all cuts happened in Division
II and III and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics,
which focuses on small colleges.
Smaller schools that need to reduce athletics expenses but don't want
to cut entire programs recently got some help from the NCAA. The
association's presidents councils for Divisions II and III each voted
to lower the minimum number of competitions for the academic year by
33%. For example, that would take football from seven games to five and
men's and women's cross country from five races to three, according to
the NCAA. The minimums are for sports sponsorship and championship
selection.
The NCAA cited its members' financial woes and the need for flexibility
around reopening timelines among its reasons for the changes. The
Division II council also voted to lower the maximum number of
competitions depending on the sport.
In addition to having fewer competitions, teams could reduce expenses
by canceling or scaling back how often they compete out of town,
experts say. Increasing the travel radius for which overnight stays are
not permitted may also help.
'It's all a chess game'
Some departments are still waiting on their institutions to set a
budget for the upcoming year. That process may be delayed, as many
schools extended the deadline for students to accept admissions offers
past the traditional cutoff date of May 1.
If sports pick back up in the fall, teams will likely be subject to
coronavirus testing and contact-tracing measures. NCAA guidance for
resuming athletics says "universal access to testing is strongly
preferred," and it prompts departments to work with their schools and
local health departments to trace who infected students may have come
into contact with. But testing is expected to be costly and access to
those supplies is not widespread.
Still, programs can be hard to bring back once they are eliminated,
said David Ridpath, an associate professor of sports administration at
Ohio University and president of an advocacy group for academic
integrity in college athletics. Division I conferences pressed the NCAA
in April to let them temporarily offer fewer sports than they are
required. The NCAA declined but said schools could ask for waivers on
an individual basis.
"What I've told people over the past couple weeks was if these sports
go, they are never coming back," Ridpath said. "Temporary was just a
nice way to couch it."
John Thelin, a professor of the history of higher education and public
policy at the University of Kentucky, agrees. Reviving sports programs
would be a challenge, he said, though the decision of what to cut and
how depends on the institution's priorities.
"It's all a chess game," he said.
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