Would cover a good chunk of the annual $20.5 million in revenue sharing that'll start going to players starting this summer. #Hokies had first year's money secured. Were looking for ways to firm that up for future seasons. https://t.co/XftPhdi00n— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) March 18, 2025
Yeah I'm sorry, I don't like this. Not only do these athletes already get tuition comp'd for them ($30k-$38k per year in-state, $50k-$65k per year out of state, per VT.edu), but now we are going to increase tuition to everyone else to pay these athletes who are already there for free. At what point are you squeezing the average student too much, and who is the voice in the room speaking up for them?
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what point are you squeezing the average student too much, and who is the voice in the room speaking up for them?
That point was passed a long time ago and no one is advocating for them outside of message boards. VA does have an annual cap on fee increase percentages, but that seems to be it.
The quality of an education at VT does not change whether VT is getting 2-3 star recruits and FCS transfer ups vs. 4-5 stars and high level transfers. It may affect VT in terms of student body over time, and athletic fees are standard everywhere else so it is easy to pass this off as rounding error.
If you are going $150k plus into debt for an out of state VT degree what's an extra $1k in fees over 4 years really matter?
I am trying very hard to have my daughters not have loans.
This is because we are still paying my wife's student loans. She will be 60 soon. Still over 100k.
Back when I was a student - and could not have cared less whether VT even had a football or a basketball team - I would have been really ticked at this. With tuition ~3x what I was paying then (last I checked), not sure if this would infuriate me even more to be asked to pay for NIL or if I would not even notice it, but asking regular nerd/dweeb people like I was then to pay for NIL would just be galling.
A major political issue in the wealthiest country on earth at state and federal levels is the "Student Debt Crisis"- also - this article. lolololololololol. Anyone that paid for college honestly should be fucking pissed at this.
Make sure to lift with your back in a jerking, twisting motion as you pull that ladder up behind you.
My (first) senior year, 1992, I would've advocated to pay $138, 75% of the $186 additional fee. Because if the football team would only play 3 quarters, then why shouldn't I pay more than 3/4 of the athletic fee?
Ha, ha! We were there at the same time, and I remember those teams. Also known as "The Chokies". There was an article in the CT and it was saying how Tech was something like 3-8 and if the games had ended at the end of the third quarter we would have been something like 6-3-2. Note, I know those specific records are wrong/I've made them up, but you get the point of what the article was saying about the late game collapses.
87-91 as a student and then worked for a year as a lab tech 91/92 before going to grad school.
EDIT: You wouldn't happen to have been in Biochemistry (unlikely as a very small major then) or one of the life sciences? Wonder if we were in any of the same classes. Or if you were active in the Newman Community.
No, no, and no. I was a physics major.
There was a great Bonehead cartoon that stuck in my head all these years. Single wide panel, sign that says "ticket office", and Bonehead at the window: "$18? But I only want to stay three quarters!"
You may have known a couple friends of mine, Rob M. would have been a year ahead of you (in my class) and Patrick M. (would have been 2 years ahead of you/1 year ahead of my. Not sure if I am supposed to give people's names out, so left the full last name's off. I'm still in touch with Rob M.
I was actually 2 years behind you, but transferred into physics a year later, and didn't graduate until....even later, so I probably didn't have any classes with anybody around your year. /shrug
FYI, this is what I saw online for VT tuition for what they pay out-of-state now and ~3x what I was paying.
Virginia Tech's tuition is $15,948 for in-state and $37,158 for out-of-state students. Compared with the national average cost of in-state tuition of $12,201, Virginia Tech is more expensive.
The part cited above here in the post is including many other costs like computer, transportation, etc:
"($30k-$38k per year in-state, $50k-$65k per year out of state, per VT.edu)"
And when I realize that that amount, just tuition for one year out-of-state, is the same that I (read: my parents) paid for all four years out-of-state for EVERYTHING, it makes me smh.
The market supports it, sadly. There is a ton of money out there. Davidson is raising a NIL war chest. College applications are up. There is monopoly money in NIL. Cooper Flagg is considering staying at Duke because it pays better than a rookie contract. If anything college tuition is too cheap.
The numbers posted by VT include all associated estimated costs- food, board, books, transportation.
Per the VT website, Out of State tuition is $34,362, and $37,764 if you include mandated fees.
Full cost, including room, food, textbooks, transportation, etc is $62,014 on campus or $58,042 off campus for an out-of-state student, per year
I have no mention of Out of State. I am only referring to In-state.
For in-state, I am paying out of pocket for in-state Freshman school of Architecture. So I have perused that more than dam near anyone here over the past 18 months.
I have posted at length on this exact data point.
We are all capable of looking at the website.
Those numbers are tuition only, they don't include room and board. The full number is in-state $39,670 and out of state $62,014.
There are going to be a lot of future indentured servants out there at those prices x4yrs.
Sources
In state
Out of state
:
That's a little more than what I'm actually paying for Freshman year, School of Architecture, in-state, on campus.
I also have not broken out the personal spending separately and my daughter does eat as much as most and she's been taught how to stretch a dollar so her meal plan is the cheapest and she has a surplus.
She also does not have a car on campus and we live close so transportation cost is well under $1882. That's only been a couple tanks of gas and $4 trips on the smartbus to Roanoke.
According to that then, taking those pieces into account, it has us at $36,746.
Our actual is $30,205
This is a drop in the bucket compared to what JMU is charging in student fees for athletics. They are not held to the same LAW that UVA and VT are. That law limits student fees at UVA and VT to no more than 20% of the total athletic budget.
Last I checked it's costing a JMU student almost $12K to graduate in four years in athletic fees.
"They are not held to the same LAW that UVA and VT are."- To hell with Ut Prosim- the new motto for VT should be "special, not in a good way". FFS
I would love the legislature to smack JMU with you are now a division I school. You get to follow the same rule and force them to slash the hell out of their fees.
Last I checked it's costing a JMU student almost $12K to graduate in four years in athletic fees.
You've got to be shitting me.
No wonder. It took VT from 1873-1993 to be consistently competitive in college football division 1. It took JMU roughly 10 minutes.
For the 2024-2025 academic year, James Madison University (JMU) students pay a mandatory comprehensive fee of $2,908 per semester, with a significant portion, $2,388, allocated to support intercollegiate athletics.
Looks like it's way more now than last I saw. That's $19,104 in athletic fees over 8 semesters. (Imagine taking $20k in debt and not even attending one athletic event)
Thank you, sharing this with my GF who is a very high level reporter at NBC News.
For a deep dive into this information, you can refer to Amy Sebring's presentation from the March 5 BOV meeting, which is among the materials for the upcoming BOV meeting next week: https://bov.vt.edu/assets/Materials-March%2024-25,%202025-36.pdf
Skip down to slide 22. VT is still way below every other 4-year public university in VA in terms of fees. I'm not saying it's necessarily right to subsidize NIL in this way, but we're going to have to make the budget work somehow and we are still below anyone else in terms of comprehensive fees.
Death by a thousand cuts. Sports aren't driving enrollment any longer like the Vick era. And just tacking on fees to non-athletes for athletes is a bit much, imho.
Application Numbers:
Record High: Virginia Tech received a record-high 52,365 first-year applications for fall 2024, a 11% increase from the previous year.
Offers Extended: The university extended offers to 28,758 first-year applicants.
Enrolled Students: The incoming first-year class consisted of 7,289 students.
Transfer Applications: More than 3,500 transfer applications were submitted for fall 2024, also setting a record.
A follow up should be what is the average student fee for athletics in VA, ACC schools, and nationally. While rightfully angry that they are substantially increasing those numbers, are they higher or lower than norm?
Another example of VT spending money on things that do not make you smarter that drive up the cost for your degree. Those buildings are nice, but expensive. The administration overhead is insane. It is an arms race to spend as much money as possible to capture infinite amounts of federally backed student loan dollars. Higher education is becoming a sham - more and more every year.
As someone who spent more years inside of the Education-Industrial Complex than I care to admit to, you are totally right. At some point in time, the house of cards has to collapse under its own weight. We may be getting close.
The amount of money that VT wastes on spaces in new buildings that "look cool", but provide absolutely zero use for educating the student or helping the faculty/staff get their job done is insane. Also insane is the amount of money they blow away renovating offices 10x over because person A leaves, their replacement person B doesn't like the furniture/layout, person B leaves for a better job in a year, person C needs a different office layout, then the dean decides that office should be relegated to a different department who needs yet another layout [facepalm]. Yet there are legitimate, hard-working employees who have to work using a 20-year old chair on a 10-year old laptop because their department's budget is thin.
In terms of athletic facilities... the moment we break ground on any new ones- Clemson and UNC build one better/bigger, etc. You will NEVER keep up.
My point had absolutely nothing to do with athletics facilities. But you are 100% correct...VT will never be competitive in that arms race. Both because we could never afford it and because we have a massive real estate crunch that prohibits it.
UVA athletic fee is $763 for this school year. Total fees for UVA is $3,630
VT charges $218.50 with total fees around $1600 (it's not nicely added for me like UVAs)
Now this is a huge contrast with some of the surrounding states, WVU fees are $700, UMd's are <$900 and UNC is just about $1000. Only the VA schools had their fees broken out. Some of the ither states do have additional fees depending on your major.
Lol...the TV Networks were Never going to Revenue Share with 18-24 year olds who average 3.0 ppg or have 8 tackles for their career.
The fact that the people who are most clearly not making revenue from College athletics are going to end up footing the bill is literally the least surprising part of this insanity.
Whether or not VT is above or below the average for Athletic fees is irrelevant to the point here. Johnny Taxpayer (who is already paying to keep VT, UVa, JMU, ect running) is now being forced to subsidize helping them buy Football and Basketball players whether they have any interest or engagement with Athletics or not.
Athletic fees should be 100% Optional by Law. If you choose "No"-- you get no tickets, no access to School athletic facilities, Gym, ect. But to give no option and then be allowed to utilize their money in ways that in no way whatsoever can be construed to benefit them is completely unscrupulous.
I'm all for there being a facility fee to support having fitness centers and rec sports, but it should be separate from a "paying football players" bucket of money that has student tickets. Just charge more for tickets and if your answer is "well student loans can't cover football tickets" .... you have your answer of if you should have ever been laundering the student loans for it.
Agreed.
A facility fee to use Gym, Athletic fields ect isn't unreasonable, clearly those things cost money to both build and maintain. And they benefit the University population as a whole.
There should then be a separate "Athletic Dept. fee" to deal with Student Tickets and whatever slush fund the Athletic Department is going to maintain to help lease Luxury cars for underprivileged, exploited athletes. That should be 100% Optional by law.
Problem is, the athletic department already knows that the vast majority of people would opt out so the University instead mandates it as a part of school attendance which is where actual exploitation is occurring.
VT and UVA both have separate fees, one for on campus gyms/pools and 1 for athletics.
"The fact that the people who are most clearly not making revenue from College athletics are going to end up footing the bill is literally the least surprising part of this insanity" correct- nowehere else in the world do season ticket holders, superfans, go AC milan fans pay for both tickets and have to fund overltey- player salaries. Nowhere. In the NFL- Nike pays Micah Parsons for commercials- not Dallas Cowboys fans. In soccer Miami fans don't have to pool money together to pay Messi's checks. Only in american college athletics.
I hate the idea of students directly subsidizing athletes (as opposed to donors subsidizing athletes).
BUT I've also come to believe that universities (especially the top 100ish universities) are selling not just an education, but also a brand, a professional network, and a college experience.
I'm not even saying this is a bad thing... when I look at what I got out of Virginia Tech, the actual material taught in class to me has been absolutely useless. Now, I did 'learn how to learn' when I was in college, and I think that skill was invaluable, but I maintain that a diploma with the VT logo is more valuable than anything taught to me in undergrad. Anyways...
All this to say, if consumers want a college experience, and having a big time football team is part of that college experience, then it does kinda make sense that consumers (aka students) subsidize that experience?
There's a bigger problem afoot - a college degree is becoming less and less accessible to a lot of Americans - and this further exacerbates that issue (which is the primary reason I don't like this).
"All this to say, if consumers want a college experience, and having a big time football team is part of that college experience, then it does kinda make sense that consumers (aka students) subsidize that experience?" - If this was remotely true mouth breathers wouldn't fight in the upper deck at every NFL game, and Giants and Jet's fans that boo crippled people and throw beer would have went to Rutgers as opposed to the army or GED route. Generalizations yes but the whole - welp I want to go to college because Go football team or go basketball team were prevalent - NBA areans and NFL stadiums would look a hell of a lot more like golf tournaments than constant MMA fights, etc. and Northwestern, BC, Rutgers and UCLA would not have swaths of empty seats at every FB game.
There's a difference between "I want to go to a college because I want to be a fan of a football team" and "I want to go to this college (instead of that college) because this college has a fun football team."
I grew up in MD. I know a lot of people who chose VT over UMD because VT cared about football and UMD didn't. 18 kids from my high school graduating class went out of state to VT. Was football the only reason? No. But it was absolutely a contributing factor.
If this premise were valid, there would be much more crossover between the great pro sports towns and their major schools- Boston, NY, LA, Chicago. When in fact it is schools in those markets that care the LEAST about big time football- Save USCw. Nobody on earth has ever cared about a BC, Rutgers, Northwestern football game ever. Nobody.
I don't agree at all... Pro sporting events aren't on campus/easy to get to, they don't have student sections, you can't get tickets for a reasonable price, you can't get a section for your entire frat/sorority/group of friends/etc.
I'm not saying that kids choose a college based on a football team alone. I'm saying that a lot of consumers are looking for a 'college experience', which is a single term that encompasses academic life, social life, professional opportunities, community, etc for someone moving out of their parents' home for the first time. On campus sports can influence your social life as a student. Some students want a very specific 'college experience'
If you think kids are choosing colleges purely based financial reasons and professional prospects... you're going to be disappointed. As of fall 2024, out-of-state students made up approximately 34.7% of Virginia Tech's undergraduate enrollment. Most of those kids could have gone to comparable schools (UMD, Rutgers, Penn State, etc) that are in-state for them (presumably less, presumably of similar academic rigor) and offer the same/similar majors. That means roughly 10,000 kids have decided that Virginia Tech offers them something special beyond the classroom. If you don't think that football directly or indirectly contributes to some of those individuals' decision... idk what to tell you.
Well Penn State has a better "football experience" than VT. And Rutgers just swept us, so again this is a very thin logic.
Penn State can be replaced with Pitt (off campus stadium), UNC, UVA, UDel, etc
Rutgers might be a better team, but it's not a better game day atmosphere.
Come on man, do you really think that the majority of 18 year olds who are choosing between multiple top 150 universities choose their destination strictly based on academics and costs, and not if they think the campus culture is one they'll enjoy?
"the majority of 18 year olds who are choosing between multiple top 150 universities choose their destination strictly based on academics and costs"- Yes, I do in fact. I know many recent college entrants that would not have looked at VT or school xxx if they werent getting financial assistance. WVU has ramped this up recently, so have schools like ECU, Bama, Colorado. Yes, Bama is trying to get kids in for other reasons than sports. I think the VAST majority of kids do not choose VT for the football experience- clearly. lol. I think you are way overselling this point. I think finances, academics, hell even legacy stuff comes way before "lets do to Gonzaga because of the Kennell experience with the hoops team".
That's not what I'm saying...
From what I've seen, whether it was my peer group from when I was applying to schools 15 years ago, or my brother and sister-in-law and their friends who have been applying to schools for the last three years, there are typically anywhere from 5 to 15 schools that they are each applying to/admitted to that are comparable in quality and costs.
At that point, they make a decision based on intangibles (city vs rural campus, is Greek life a thing, do they know vs not know people there, football vs basketball, which school has hotter girls, etc)
Again – I'm not saying that sports are the primary driver of the kids decision on where they go to school. I am saying that for a lot of kids, it can be a consideration.
Hi. I'm one of those people that having a major football team was a large part of the criteria for the college I attended. It's not the only factor like bar is saying, VT is still a great engineering school. But it definitely ruled out a lot of other options that had lesser quality football teams. Oh and I was out of state so I chose VT or PSU
Define "lesser quality football teams." You mean like D3? I mean the big schools with the big football programs are typically the ones with the big academic programs as well. There are the schools such as MIT, Cal Tech, Carnegie Melon...but their costs are way higher than VT's.
Pretty much any school with no history, tradition, or fun. So yes anything less than FBS is ruled out. Any historical bottom feeder of a conference like Duke, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, or Kansas are ruled out. The exceptions to the rule would be your Ivy League or similar quality academic schools
It might not be the case today, but financial reasons and professional prospects are 100% the reason I came to Tech back in the 90's. I was accepted at VT, Cornell, Syracuse, and URI (didn't apply, but was accepted as a parent was a faculty member). URI was free but didn't have my preferred major. VT was X cost, Syracuse was 2X, and Cornell was 2.5X. That made my decision on where I was going to get my engineering education.
Sure - obviously on the micro level, everyone's experience is different. But in 2025 I'd be pretty surprised to find someone looking at three schools in New York, Virginia Tech, and no other schools.
How did VT even get on your radar? Legacy? Connection through parents? Great outbound marketing?
Mine was easier than most as I was thinking about going to vet school or medical school. At the time, there were something like 24 or 26 or whatever it was vet schools in the country (don't remember) and there are many more medical schools. It was, and I presume still is, much harder to get into vet school than medical school. So I picked places that had a vet school. Was also living in Missouri and absolutely hated it there. Wanted to come back east and could not stand hot weather. Put it all together and there were only a handful of places to consider.
In the end, I did neither of those professional schools.
But nothing related to athletics had even the remotest impact on my thinking about places to go. It was (1) vet school, (2) geography and (3) cost. At the time, VT was considered a real bargain. Sad thing is that it probably is still below most costs based upon what I've seen looking at places for my daughter.
Believe it or not my high school guidance counselor officer had a pamphlet and I researched top 20 engineering schools and cross referenced against costs. The spring break trip to look at the school sold Mom and I.
My wife - the daughter of an Ohio State engineering alum- got into Cornell, Penn, OSU, WVU, etc. Her dad told here "major in engineering- wherever you go" She had been to Ohio State but he encouraged her- look at VT- good engineering school, close to home. She visited VT once before deciding to go there. My story is a bit different. I wanted to go someplace warm. My dad told me- I will pay your tuition if you go to an in state school. So I only really considered VT and JMU- I am what Frank Beamer calls "not a UVA type".
NIL is gross and I think it's going to eventually kill my love of any and all college athletics. It's already half-dead honestly. It was bad when we only had to worry about our coaches getting big-dogged, but now it's the players too.
Right there with you.
Drifting away, bit-by-bit. Didn't watch a minute of NCAA selection show and not even gonna bother with a bracket this year. Once they inevitably (and completely unnecessarily) expand the Tourney so more P2 teams with .300 conference records can make it, I'm probably completely out on MBB.
CFB...other than VT, I consume very little. Expanding the CFP was great for getting more TV $$$ but totally pointless from a competition standpoint..most of the games were snoozers.
The product is getting less compelling to anyone who isn't a fan of a Blue Blood program and is taking advantage of the very fans that made it so compelling in the first place with bullshit streaming games, expectations to contribute to NIL slush funds, and now extorting NIL money out of non-athlete college students.
I'm not a fan of this at all. This is financially penalizing the students for the NCAA's lack of control and Whit's inability to manage the current athletics landscape. If this is the alternative to makeup that deficit I would rather see the AD implode and have all sports revert to club mode.
It's a question of ROI.
If we had competitive teams that represent the the school well and function as the "front porch of the university" effectively, then I don't think it's that big of a deal. But the current iteration of "we're still ass but we're not that bad"? Hell to the no.
Shrug.
This is what it costs to go to a "name brand" school that has "name brand" athletics.
This was baked in to the decision to start paying players, and was only a matter of time. They're employees. Someone has to pay. Probably everyone.
It's not, I haven't found another school above $1k in fees that is outside the state of Virginia. Bama, UNC, WVU, UMd, anOSU, UGA all have fees way less than VT which are WAY less than UVA.
Are you kidding? Most (or all) of those universities spend far more on their athletics programs, even if they don't break their fees out the same way. Virginia schools may be different in that they spell these out specifically.
$732 isn't more than $1,000.
I am not kidding. As I stated above, VT fees are $1600 and UVAs are $3600. I looked at an OSU, Bama, WVU, UNC, NC State, UMd, UGA and the highest total fees i found are juat under $1000. So i have no idea where you think those other schools are funneling money from students to athletics since they have other things those fees need to pay for too. Per the knight commision Alabama, LSU, and anOSu athletic departments all recieve $0 from student fees. In 2023, the big 12 conference took it $5m in student fees, Texas and OU has $0. VT gets $13m from student fees. This is not something most schools do.
Again as I have said we aren't playing the same game as most schools and our financial data shows it. Big 12, Big 10, SEC, and Pac12 (2023) get less than 2% of their money from student fees. The ACC gets 5% and UVA and VT are for half the dollar amount. Student fees are much more prevalent at the G5 conferences as the mountain west charges as much in student fees as the ACC. The MAC and AAC are both about $20m more than the MWC and ACC, and CUSA is double that. UVA and VT charging student fees is such a G5 thing to do.
What I'm saying is that you're only PRETENDING that students at those universities aren't subsidizing their sports programs.
Just because they don't label some specific fees the same way doesn't mean none of their money is flowing to athletic programs. Facilities, for example. I'm no expert, but I have to believe there are indirect subsidies. Maryland, for example, moved some of the facilities near their sports programs into their medical school, and now they have a co-located sports medicine program (indirectly subsidizing their administrative building)
If anything, Virginia requires more transparency.
I want more transparency. I want athlete salary as a line item on everyone's tuition bill. People should know that they are also employing ballers when they send their kids to VT. Also- there is a student debt crisis in the richest country in the world. That too. It's all totally logical.
The student debt problem is another subject of it's own, but let's not pretend tuitions aren't higher because of Federal government subsidy, while endowments at private universities are $ billions of taxpayer dollars.
Looking at VT vs UMD comparison for out of state costs. With this increase it will be more expensive to go to VT than UMD. UMD is the 44th best university by US news and world report, VT is the 51st.
Using bank rates cost of living calculator, $60,500 in Bethesda/Gaithersburg is work $42,224 in Roanoke. So why is VT so much more expensive?
Using the Knight commission's data base for we see that VT, received $2.15m from institutional support and $13.59m from student fees in 2023. While UMD received $6.12m from institutional support (which jumped in 2023 and would support the co-location of facilities) and $11.78m from student fees. So yes it looks like they are milking students more. But look at an actual athletic department from the Big Ten. PSU $0 institutional support, $0 student fees. They have 4x the donations UMD has. They have 4x the ticket sales of UMD. They have better licensing agreements too. (VT is around 40% of they ticket sales and 20% of their licensing). OSU has a similar profile to PSU but are 3x their licensing and almost double their ticket sales. Bama does get institutional support at $2.5m but no student fees, it comes from licensing, tickets sales, donations just like the other big schools. Michigan, looks the same, these schools are doing 3-4x in ticket sales to VT.
I agree with DC saying we should have more transparency, but the fact of the matter is looking at the data we have VT's student fees are high across the board. VT is just as expensive as most other universities despite being in a low cost of living area. I'd say that Virginia has a pretty low lack of transparency if VT cost as much as a school inside the DC beltway. Where is that $18k going? And VT's fee transparency still doesn't even address that the big programs don't need student funds because the donor, ticket sales, and licensing all handle the differences we make in student fees, they don't need them because they have other streams of money. Michigan makes as much in licensing as VT makes in student fees, ticket sales, and institutional support combined (VT makes $3m for licensing).
Those costs for out of state students appear to be very similar to me, and the universities seem simliar in terms of overall ratings.
I'd consider them peers.
Roping in an outside banking "cost of living" estimate may not be all that accurate for students, as that may consider home owner rates as compared to renters, for example.
Sure but it does affect faculty and staff which are paid through those same dollars. Goods and services in SWVA shouldn't cost the same as inside the beltway. Rent in bburg might be worse than buying a house, and renting in college Park might be way cheaper than a mortgage, but at no point should a comparable shelter cost anywhere close to the same in each location. It might not be 18k, but it's probably closer to that then say 10k.
I'm going to say it - as long as big college athletics keep going this way, I'm not going to allow my son and daughter to consider VT or any big FBS school. Period. Students actually wanting to get an education and taking on debt to do so being forced to subsidize intercollegiate sports because these athletes think they bring so much "value" is just morally and ethically wrong.
If VT and other schools had any guts, they would list it on a line item in tuition costs - " basketball and football salary fee"... Remember Brent Pry makes millions and Whit brings in "millions in profit" every year, but Sally math major should pay for ballers- because- fairness.
I will send my kids to UNC, NCSU, ECU, etc before I send them to VT. The out of state tuition at Tech is not worth it. Full stop, its just not worth it. It would be cheaper for me to send my kids to UNC ($8.9k per year) or NC State ($8.8k per year) for all 4 years ($35.6k or $35.2k) than it would be for me to send either to Tech for one year ($36.7k).
It just doesn't make any sense to do otherwise. At a certain point, you're pissing that money away.
Out of state is not really worth it anywhere, unless you are going to a school like an Ivy League, UofChicago, Stanford, etc. It's just not worth the increase in cost anymore.
In state is absolutely the way to go. After all, that's where you're paying your taxes, and that's where you can get that benefit. Virginia and North Carolina both have world class universities.
100%. My daughter was looking at some out of state schools. I had to explain the real difference in the costs. I'd have much more pending money and retirement savings but she's have $100,000 in loans.
On the surface, $186 isn't that much money...totally understood.
But there are layers to this scenario and that's where it gets absolutely infuriating.
1 ) This year, the fee is $186....is that fee ever going to go down? The answer is no. So next year, its $321. Then $458. By the end of 4 years, there's nearly $1500. That $1500 then gets interest compounded on it year over year and ends up being more like $3000 by the time Mary the Chemistry Major pays off her student loans. That's real money that matters to people.
2 ) Not to pick on him, but let's take the case of Rodney Brown. He is going into the Transfer Portal. He is a bit player who no one outside of his family and close friends would recognize. He has no tangible or real-world NIL value---none. But Rodney now has an "Agent." A wonderful guy named Ryan who was a journeyman D1 BB player who now sells Real Estate in Southern California. How does that qualify him to be an agent? Oh it doesn't....at all... but that's not the point here. Because he has an agent, Rodney is now going to demand NIL $ at his next stop. He probably won't get much but there's a reasonable chance he will find a school willing to give him a few thousand dollars (maybe $10k??). Well good for Rodney and Ryan (who surely gets a percentage) and maybe it doesn't affect Mary @ VT but now Harold the History major at Temple gets a new student fee to help pay Rodney and Ryan the unqualified agent.
3) This is happening all over the country, probably on a larger scale than at VT.
Plenty of the NIL Proponents have stated the opinion that players deserve "whatever the market will bear," but when you have to mandate fees to help pay NIL money for athletes, isn't that a totally clear indication that the market isn't bearing the cost of NIL anymore? That maybe all these incredible profits that Universities are supposedly raking in from Athletics might not be as factual as the Internet makes them out to be? I'm just waiting for the point at which people who think this was a good idea are willing to say that maybe, just maybe this NIL situation has gone too far.
"Rodney is now going to demand NIL $ at his next stop"- beause some fucking douchebag Miami businessman will give it to him expecting no return. Go Canes!!
This right here. When you have to mandate payments as a qualifier of attending school, which you need to do in order to basically get any job in the market nowadays, then you're basically saying the free market isn't keeping up, so you have to prop up an artificial one in order to pay players more. And there's nothing we can do about it. Those fees will continue to rise because everyone involved here is operating with out of control greed and the only ones who are truly suffering are the fans and students. And as the fans say 'fuck you', they're just directing that cost to students, who have absolutely no say and absolutely no representation in this process. They're getting squeezed to Johnny Fuckoff can get a larger check in his pocket on top of the free education he already gets.
Nobody on here believes me, but if we had true NIL and/or TV money (the reason the ACC will die soon and the SEC is dominant) paid players directly- I would shut up. If Arch Manning was the starting QB for Texas - instead of a backup that gets paid more than Cam Ward will in the NFL- and on national ATT commercials with Barkley and Snoop- I would shut up. If Kyrone Drones had his own shoe- not a peep from me. But the pay for play nonsense based on "fairness" when the money that athletes generate ( a lot fucking less than people think) is NOT what is used to pay them - its a fucking farce of the highest order. The argument for the shitshow we are in right now was based on "the players generate billions in revenue, so they are slaves if you dont pay them" well we DONT fucking pay them from that revenue. lolololol. Eventually a school or schools will have the balls to take this to the courts the other way- meaning challenge no rules, unlimited eligiblity, the abolishment of title 9, anti trust etc and maybe we can fix this shitshow. Until then, VT will not be seriously competitive in any revenue sport. Enjoy rooting for the Jets, A's, Wizards for the next 50 years.
I remember bringing to your attention that Sam Hartman had a legit NIL deal with dollar shave club and beats by dre when at ND and you refused to believe that it was legit. Digging for the post...
I don't remember that- but I probably dismissed it yes. Was he paid by Death Row Records? Or ND boosters? THAT is my point.
He was likely paid by dollar shave club, beats by dre, etc for those opportunities AND paid by ND boosters separately.
I think DC's point is that the whole package of compensation was still driven by boosters and not all from an NIL deal. So if it took $1MM to get Hartman and even $500k came from NIL and the other $500k from boosters, then the NIL market isn't truly supporting these deals. It's going to come down to the schools with the boosters who have the most cash to throw around to subsidize the deal, which is a clear market failure. Now with revenue sharing that will support a large chunk of these deals where the NIL value isn't really there.
If Dollar Shave Club paid Sam Hartman money for actually doing a spot, etc. I have no issue with it- good for Sam. If dollar shave club gave to the ND "collective" for a no show gig- fuck that. That is where I have always stood on it. I'd love some insight from someone that lives in Durham- Is Cooper Flagg - who is earning 4.5 million in NIL this season- on ads everywhere? Is his jersey flying off the shelves in the bookstore? Does he have his own cereal? I am genuinely curious. I have not seen him on a national ad spot.
Being in Raleigh and not having watched much college basketball this year, I genuinely don't know what Cooper Flagg looks like or what his voice sounds like. Never seen him on an ad or heard him on the radio.
The only time I have ever seen an ad around town was a TV commercial that someone did with the UNC offensive line at one point, and I think it might have had Drake Maye in it as well. But that's it.
Hartman had endorsement deals with Google, Under Armour, Beats by Dre, Dove, Dollar Shave Club, Mizzen+Main and others while at Notre Dame.
This is ultimately the spot-on point. Thank you.
If the revenue is really there then it should be no problem to pay the players with it. The problem is 1% of the players generate 99% of the revenue. The rest don't generate enough revenue to offset the cost of their Scholarship.
I feel like Matthew McConaughey from Wolf of Wall Street everytime I have a conversation with an "NIL Supporter" or hear the phrase "NIL Potential"
One thing I have to disagree with is this part:
"When you have to mandate payments as a qualifier of attending school, which you need to do in order to basically get any job in the market nowadays"
I totally get where you are coming from and agree with all the major points you and DC and others are making, but that notion that you need a university degree to get a good job is not correct. It is the Big Lie that The Education-Industrial Complex - including down to the high schools - it's allies in the media and government and some industries have been spewing out for decades and successfully brainwashed a few generations with. But with fewer people going to universities - and not just because there are fewer kids of the typical college age, which there are, but even beyond that - we are seeing a shift in people no longer buying the Big Lie. This gives me some hope that this Education-Industrial Complex monster could finally collapse under its own weight. If things like more fees to pay for NIL tick off enough people and hasten the collapse, so much the better. Will be short-term pain if that happens, but long-term benefit if people stop paying $40,000 a year to study things like Art History, Drama, Gender Identity Studies, Philosophy or Theatre and to pay for back-up QBs as well.
That sounds nice and all, but have you taken part in the job market over the last 18 months? Its all driven by AI automation, from both the HR side where they are using AI to scrub every resume to look for key words before it even reaches a person to applicants using bots and other services to spam their resumes out there. If you post a job right now you are overnight inundated with hundreds if not thousands of applicants.
The fact of the matter is, its worse than ever for people to have the bare minimum to meet job descriptions. If you don't meet the minimum education requirements, you're getting filtered out before a human even sees your resume, as there is absolutely an excess of supply of people who meet them.
A four-year college degree is the new high school diploma. Join the club. Entry level jobs these days are strongly preferring advanced degrees. So IMO, if you pay a premium to get a bachelor degree these days, that's just a waste of money.
It depends upon the type of job. Plumbing, construction, welding, auto repair, stage crew at the theatre (which my daughter is interested in and I've told her point blank we are not paying $60,000 a year for tuition alone at Wake Forest or Duke so she can study Theatre, you just get a job doing stage crew if you want that).
The trades are definitely not being inundated with applicants.
She can study theatre at VT. Then do a one year master's anywhere she wants.
A degree, while not strictly required, does prove something about people, and does expand their horizons.
This is the absolute truth. Add to the fact that roughly 30% of job ads are totally fake postings looking to low ball people on salaries. Another 15% are to avoid OFCCP lawsuits for internal good ole boy promotions. Best way to find a job in America remains networking and/or paying someone to find you a job.
I know that "good job" is open to interpretation, but I've worked in the tech/software industry for a decade now and I've never had a coworker without a college degree.
There's absolutely nothing in an undergraduate program that directly helps you develop the skills you need to be successful as a non-developer in Tech (and even dev skills can be self taught or learned from places other than universities).
I've had coworkers who broke into the industry with English degrees, psych degrees, degrees from schools I've never heard of, etc, but I've never had a single coworker without a college degree.
There's a difference between saying "you need to go to college to learn the things necessary to perform at a job" (I think this is false) and "you need to have a college degree in order to separate yourself from other applicants" (which I think is absolutely correct).
True- I work in health IT- I have never hired anyone without at least a BA. Don't remember every working with someone without one. Having said that - a bachelors is just table stakes now- nothing more. A real estate agent or electrician or HVAC technician are certainly potentially "good jobs" sure. None of those are going to pay what we pay entry level BAs with college degrees though. HVAC you are starting at 40K per year max.
Salaries are out of control as well. As a starting Engineering with an EIT, I was making under 30 in the 90's. Now, a graduate engineer with an EIT is expected to make at least 55.
When I got my first real job in 1994 making 30K... I legit thought I was rich. Seriously. I could afford my rent, car and golf on the weekends. In many ways, I'd love to go back to those days.
Oh God, I was the same way. $50,000 in 1999 after my $16,500 a year grad student stipend and could afford an apartment on my own. Was in the elevator at the end of the work day and was talking with a couple of co-workers. Somehow I mentioned that I was going to sew my socks that had gotten a hole in them. Person who was with me and had also gone the grad school lower than Burger King pay for many years route but was a year or so ahead of me says something like, 'Chris, you have a job now. You can afford to buy new socks.'
Prior to that, no, it would have never occurred to me to buy new socks because they had a hole in them instead of sewing them up with a needle and thread.
Inflation is a motherfucker.
$30k in 1995 is worth the exact same as $62.5k today. So those kids demanding that salary are actually asking for pretty much the same as what you were making then.
Those kids don't have any ridiculous demands, they just want their salaries to keep up with inflation so they can have the same quality of life that you did 30 years ago.
Not to pick knits, but that's 100% inflation over a long-ish window. I don't know exactly when you started, but in terms of buying power, $25,000 in 1995 equates to $53,000 today per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So that's pretty much flat in terms of purchasing power for a starting salary, if not slightly less today.
*EDIT* Alum posted pretty much the exact same thing. Guess I gotta drink.
Newsflash: the 90s were 30 years ago. 30 years of inflation will bump that "under 30" number to "at least 55".
Edit: Guess I'm drinking too.
Sorry, not buying that. I don't doubt what you say about everyone in your work having a degree. I think everyone at mine has one too. Many of us have more than undergrad. But it is the notion that a degree is required to get a good job or be successful or do well that I push back against. How many auto mechanics or welders or small business owners and entrepreneurs have very good jobs and are highly successful with a high school diploma? Lots.
We can look at our industries/businesses and see the need for a degree as a baseline entry. But there are plenty of places that do not need one and do not put people tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Those jobs are not for everyone. Fine. Jobs that require a 4 year degree (or 10 years if you count grad school) are not for everyone either. With fewer and fewer people attending 4 year universities, the Education-Industrial Complex monster and the false notion spewed by them that you have to go to college to be successful or get a good jump will - I hope - come crumbling down.
Great book that, although dated, should be required reading for kids in 10th or 11th grade and their parents is The Millionaire Next Door. Most people who do well did not get there from their degrees.
Everything is relative. If my children are respectful, gainfully employed, law abiding and responsible you damn right I think they are "successful". Damn right they are. I make very good money, I have worked hard and been blessed with great opportunities. A recent anecdote- I can certainly "afford" to buy Eagles tickets at the sphere in Vegas- sure. But I am not 2K dollars plus fees for a decent seat and not think twice about it "successful" in life. That residency sold out at those prices for months. People out there - many- make stupid, stupid money.
A lot of people also have the appearance of wealth because they spend all of their money on flashy, readily apparent things to other people. Like expensive sports tickets, cars, houses, etc. that they truthfully can't afford. There are a lot of very truly wealthy people out there, no doubt. But most of those types don't flash it. The people flashing luxuries and routinely spending on those items are ,more often than not, up to their eyeballs in debt. I've seen it first hand.
Yes, and in my example- if they were in town 1-2 nights, I get the insane prices. But this was long deal, so you would think demand would calm a bit. Nope. Now I am fully aware that being in vegas, many seats are comped to high rollers, business buy tickets to entertain, etc. But it was the point where I wasn't going there. I sold my 5 series beamer for the same reason... i am not wealthy enough to not look at the bottom of the repair receipts.
I'm sorry but the big reason those trade jobs right now pay remotely well is because there isn't a massive pool of talent to pick and choose from, making it a scarce resource. If everyone started pivoting and going down that path, it wouldn't be very long til the average person in those roles would be struggling to make a living wage, as everyone would be trying to undercut each other to get business.
True, if everyone pivoted to the trades, it would depress salaries. Just like the Education-Industrial Complex brainwashing so many more people to go to university than they did in the 1960s and 1970s made the university degree less valuable while the cost has only gone up-and-up. The pendulum swung way too far and it is now, I hope, swinging back. If it goes to far the other way, it will do what you say. But that does not change the fact that a college degree is not the only way or even the best way to be successful or get a good job.
Yes and No...
Vying a bit off-topic here but there is certainly a dearth in supply of skilled Tradeworkers, but there is also alot of demand.
Demand largely from Homeowners who lack the ability or initiative to do even basic work--drywall repair, changing a light fixture, ect. I bought a new fan for a bedroom this week and the person behind me in line asked me if I could give them the name of my electrician...
The supply part would have to be drastically increased to outstrip demand.
The counter to that is while the money can be quite good, the lifestyle isn't great. I have never met a Tradesman 40y/o or more who doesn't have a number of physical or Orthopedic maladies. So calling it a "good job" is probably a stretch and why few are interested in making a career of it
Yep- Outback "proprietors" - biggest scam term on earth as if they own "anything" at outback. Brilliant corporate marketing... They are restaurant managers with minimal revenue share if they hit every impossible target and they work 100 hours a week for what seems like a good 85K per year wage. I'm also familiar with the HVAC trade. Yep you can make 60K, yep you are in attics in the summer and work in all weather with absolute shit benefits, pto, no 401K, etc. Manual labor and hospitality can pay decent wages- but you work you ass off in thankless hard situations.
I will throw in my two cents. As a PE who focuses on civil municipal work, there is a huge lack of public works employees. For those who want to work outside, I always say look into public works. You will be a County/Town employee in the state retirement/pension system, great benefits, every state holiday, etc. Yes, you will get the shitty jobs some time, especially if you focus on water or wastewater treatment. But unless you slack off, there is guaranteed employment with good odds of overtime. Most guys I know, even cycle through other localities to pick up raises while staying in the state system. Operators go from Rural Retreat to Wytheville to Wythe County and back. Over closer, Blacksburg to Christiansburg to Floyd to Montgomery County PSA to the Arsenal and in between normally getting raises at every jump.
The only thing to check is some localities like Fairfax have their own retirement system separate from the state so if you leave for Loudoun or Prince William you have to start over. I don't remember if Fairfax is the only holdout or if there are a couple others still. I will also say that Fairfax has made some changes to the system over the last couple of years and it isn't nearly as good of a deal any more for new hires. Plus the lack of diversified revenue base has them in a bit of a budget pickle.
I generally second public sector work though as long as you accept that the money won't be as good as private sector but the hours are better and it is generally stable. I do park projects which have the advantage of being relatively short so even if you have difficult neighbors/contractor/site inspector, the pain is short lived and then you get to build something else.
Not so much these days at the federal level. That advantage is gone now, I'm afraid.
Yeah, my wife is almost to a state pension as an employee of Loudoun Water even though LW is privately held, due to its being part of the public utility system they have a deal in place that includes them.
Every now and then I debate moving from consulting to public sector to pick up the pension. But at this point I would need to work into my 70's to be fully vested in state retirement and I don't want to do that.
Like I said above: "good job" or "successful" or "do well" are ambiguous terms. Can you be happy, fulfilled, and financially stable without a college degree? Sure.
What's undeniable is that there is a significant earnings gap between those with and without a bachelor's degree. There's also a significant gap in net worth between the two (although that might have more to do with who is going to college rather than what universities teach).
I think we are largely in agreement.
Great!
Perhaps straying the line of politics but this just seems like the rest of the world, squeezing the little guy for some money for the gain of the mega corporation.
Just to clarify athletic scholarships for the last 10 years have been paid solely by donations to the Hokie Club. That might change with new scholarship limits though.
Is this the way other schools with actual money do it too? or is VT special there as well?
This is the basis of it - scholarship limits are going away across all sports in favor of just having roster limits. The university has sufficient cash reserves to manage the upcoming year of NIL with the House settlement coming that provides for institutions to provide $20.5M in funding. The problem for us (and any schools in the state) is that Virginia has the most restrictive laws associated with athletics across the country. We can't use E&G (education and general fund) money - tuition and state appropriations - for any of this, and central university funds can't subsidize athletics by more than 20%. Unless the law changes, that's our problem. Hence the increase in fees.
Survey data of alumni consistently show that athletics is a core part of what drives positive feelings about the university and the shared experiences they bring. The university has an obligation to the NRV because our athletics events (mostly football) generate $100M for the local economy each year.
Yeah the only benefit of including NIL in the Athletic budget is it changes the total of the budget to expand the 20% totals. It's not much but a minor bump.
So I still don't know what I want to do when (if?) I grow up- and I just turned 60 two weeks ago(approximately). Grew up in Richmond metro graduating HS in 1983 My academics(grades/SATs/) were top of the line and could've gotten me into all or almost all schools . Parents both well educated AND smart( they are not always mutually inclusive lol) -Dad graduated from Duke-returning after failing out first year due to partying a bit too much); Mom graduated in 3 years from Syracuse (if you think VT student population grew quickly, Syracuse went from 8000 to 50,000 in ONE year due to influx of GI bill students). We were all highly motivated kids though only 4 ended up going to college and 3 graduated-life got in the way for the others.
I figured I would enroll in the major that was hardest to get into-Engineering-and if I didn't like it , I could transfer to something else. - I only applied to four schools total(and got into all of them):
1) USAF Academy- full ride/zero cost; dad was career Air Force; he and my mom (also Air Force) were enlisted and then met at OCS-mom got out when started having kids got a nomination from Congressman, passed flight physical, and fitness test- ultimately a 9 year commitment (4 yrs college, 1 yr flight school, 4 years min service after) was more than my 18 yo self was ready to do.
2) Duke -dad was alumnus- good engineering school, ROTC available to help pay along with academic scholarships-no problem getting accepted- just smaller than I wanted to go to
3) William and Mary-close but not in same city(Richmond-Williamsburg one hour; had lived in Newport News as a young kid; - good engineering school, ROTC available to help pay along with academic scholarships-no problem getting accepted- just smaller than I wanted to go to
4)Virginia Tech- two sisters already attending; college town atmosphere (university is the focus of the area-the 800 lb gorilla); great academic reputation (at that time
UVA waa known as hard to get into but easy to stay in vs VT easier to get in but harder to stay in if you f'#$d up academically); not interested in ROTC as it was full time(if I'd wanted that I'd have done the USAF Academy); and reasonably priced and offered me full 4 yr scholarship(subject to maintaining grades of course).- obviously I ended up in Blacksburg.
First year -scholarship paid for all -tuition, room and board, fees and books, but I had a 3-2 GPA -less than the 3.4 required to maintain) so lost it for following years. Also partook a little much in "college life'-(drinking age still 18 at that time)
Second year -continued engineering-paid for all with earnings from 2 summer jobs( total 70 hours a week) (didn't work at all during school year); decided at end of year that I wasn't interested enough to continue in Engineering; transferred to business school and again chose hardest to get into-Accounting- and could transfer out if didn't like it
3rd year- student loans covering costs above what my savings could pay for; did accounting for 1 quarter- got As but BORING AS HELL! No way i wanted to do that for rest of my life. So I looked for the business degree that required the least additional credits to graduate which turned out to be Management. 4th and 5th years also paid by loans- 4th by student loans; 5th by borrowing rent $ from parents(no way they were paying college costs for 7 kids).
So TOTAL costs averaged approx 4000-4500 per year for the 5 years I attended (never took over 15 hours/quarter). As I started post college work(restaurants-1st waiting tables then got into management) my parents allowed me to live at home for $100 a month room and board. , I had total of $3250 in outside loans which I paid off completely within the 6 month grace period before interest began accruing. I owed my mom bout $5000 and she asked me for $50/month; instead I paid her 300-350/month and paid her back in a year r and a half-basically I decided to forgo partying and splurging on anything else to get it done.
The $4500 /yr average(again for TOTAL costs would be equivalent to about if adjusted for REGULAR inflation costs) would equate to about $13154 today.(cumulative 195 % or so higher than the 1985 figure).
However as we all know, college costs FAR outpaced inflation of remainder of economy- hence the current total instate cost figures in the $38-40k range a whopping 766% increase.
Largely this is due to the explosion of federal student loan programs with no real attention paid to 'credit qualifications; nor any ROI for degrees which may broaden educational perspective but not translate into future income prospects. A major in Medieval History is fine and enriching academically , but the job prospects for finding a position directly related to that degree are likely slim.
The key value to a degree is as noted above to get your foot in the door, but also you need to 'learn to learn' and develop work ethics and habits. I told my own kids that to be honest - if you actually SHOW UP for work regularly (not calling out a ton of times) then you are already better than 50% of today's work force; if you perform the basic work that your position requires even ADEQUATELY, you are usually in the top 10-20%; if you excel and particularly if you seek out new knowledge and skills, you are in the top 5% of the workforce. I have been at the bank I work for nearly 32 years now. I started as a true clerical peon with ZERO experience in banking.
But I 'd watch the people around me and ask 'hey what are you doing?" then "how do you do that?" then "can I try?". I thus broadened my skillset and knowledge of the company and industry. Over the 32 years, I have worked in over a dozen increasingly complex and lucrative positions, and for EVERY position, I have worked in, I was specifically requested to by the manager (in large part to knowing they would gain a motivated worker who would go above and beyond the job duties and would incorporate knowledge of the big picture(the why this was important and how it impacted the entire company.
Anyway enough pontificating.