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this is something that has to be solved by law makers at the state and federal level
100% agree. Unfortunately that group's track record is abysmal and trending down.
I was under the impression that Buzz was the one who reached out to Whit and Virginia Tech. I thought that hire fell into Whit's lap.
Good riddance
But kinda hopefully not because Tyler Warren committed to VT then decommitted.
BEARDS > PEOPLE
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2 months 2 weeks
# | Whit Babcock Announces his retirement effective June 30, 2026 Great post. Right on the money
A big HS QB that projects as TE? Wait.....
A HS QB to college TE. Tyler Warren 2.0 hopefully.
love seeing these offer lists. they've been such a downer the past forever (akron, odu, coastal carolina, ecu, Eastern Michigan State International West, etc.)
This I agree with. And, university presidents can't force Uncle $ugar out of the college loan business. And until that happens there won't be market pressure to control prices.
As someone who has been in the student loan business for over 40 years, I cannot agree more. I have posted on this topic previously, the government is making billions off of the backs of student and parents and not too many people talk about it. When my company participated in the federal Stafford student loan business, it was an extremely competitive marketplace. If you didn't offer the best loan products to schools and students, you were out of business pretty quickly. We paid all the upfront loan origination fees for borrowers, bought down interest rates, provided millions in scholarships, etc. Hell, at one time we were even able to offer private student loans at Prime - 0.5%. We also developed special programs for some schools in which the schools themselves would subsidize the interest rates for their students. None of these types of discounts or "give back" programs are available any longer, and our cost of funds back then (privately raised lines of credit) was much, much higher than the Feds.
All the tight ends! 
I'll be shocked if anyone else on here actually listens to these and we will immediately become friends if you do....
These are all hobby/business related:
-Colubrid and Colubroid Radio
-Colubrid Corruption
-The Herpetoculture Network
-Kush's Korner (not what you think)
-Snake Talk with Dr. Jenkins
-The Expert and the Idiot
I am going to have to broaden my horizons and check out some of the history pods listed in this thread.
That is not the mission of the university though. An institution that prepares students for jobs at an accessible price is a community college. Tech's mission is broader than that.
He was supposed to run an institution that teaches students skills that will prepare them for jobs at an accessible price.
It's not just COVID:
- In FY19 (which includes the 2020 football season) the SEC was pulling ~$45m/school while the ACC was pulling in ~$32m/school. Five years later, the ACC distributed ~$45m/school, while the SEC distributed >$70m/school (and growing)
- In 2021, athletes are allowed to transfer without sitting out
- In 2021, the NCAA starts allowing NIL
The college football landscape drastically shifted right in year 6(?) of Whit's 12(?) year tenure.
But at the end of the day, "all the other kids are doing it" isn't an example of good leadership.
IMO it's not analogous to peer pressure. Rather, it's analogous to the prisoner dilemma at scale.
And, university presidents can't force Uncle $ugar out of the college loan business. And until that happens there won't be market pressure to control prices.
Yep - from my perspective (which is potentially quite ignorant) this is something that has to be solved by law makers at the state and federal level.
I guarantee you that being a high quality education with cost effective housing will get people to come (the reason I chose VT over other options 17 years ago).
VT is currently the 51st best school in USNews, and the bottom quartile for tuition cost amongst the top 100.
We all agree that it's unreasonable to expect the football team to be top 25 in the nation on a top 60 budget. The same applies to academics.
Without legislative changes at the state and federal level... I don't see a way to lower cost of attendance without impacting quality of degree/reputation.
What is the point of spending billions to reject more students? You want an artificially low acceptance rate for your aau application?
I think this was rhetorical, but yes, unfortunately most of the 'reputable' ranking organizations/methodologies incentivize schools with a lower acceptance rate
Is that truly a good roi for the students now paying insane costs for the same or worse education than I got?
Current students? Eh. Graduates? Maybe, but still eh.
He is supposed to be the adult in the room and he was not. "Oh no I had to spend hundreds of millions on luxury amenities because *gestures broadly* they made me. Sorry students but im gonna need an extra 100k from each of you over 4 years."
From my perspective, it seems like there's a misalignment of goals/incentives. I doesn't seem like Sands/VT has any incentive to lower tuition. They won't get more money from the state gov't, they won't get access to more/better research grants, the school's ranking won't go up... Not sure what Sands was supposed to do?
Maybe he realized that we were just doomed when those above him stepped in to stop him from firing Fuente at that 2020 press conference. Yeah he could have handled the next few years better, but I wonder if that moment was when he just knew that things would have to get worse before they got better, and new blood would be needed.
Not defending Whit exactly, but your comment made me think about it, and man it would be tough to be working at a football school where the football HC is one of the most important people in the whole organization, and you're told at the last moment that you can't fire him, even though his performance very clearly warranted it. The odds of him improving things from that point onward had to be very low, no matter what actions he took post-2020.
Having price-compared VT and Cornell recently, and at our income level, I can say that Cornell would be more than twice the cost of VT at almost $100k/year.
Franklin is cooking
I've considered talking to my daughter about that route, but with her participating in the Chesapeake Bay Governor's School, and all of her classes there being dual enrollment (she'll graduate just a class or two shy of an Associate's Degree), I'm not sure that there's anything for her to gain from another year, essentially, of CC. It's all math and science there, and I guess she could work on core curriculum, but I think this is one case where what she needs is the "college experience", and working out coping techniques with her anxiety. She's been getting a lot better in that respect, but I think she's ready for the next step. I don't think another year of living at home and doing CC will help as much there.
First off, this is a hilarious video (hilarious in the Kristen Bell laughing then crying gif way).
Second, this pairs really well with what VTJ12 said above about splitting Whit's tenure into before and after COVID. Virtually all of the bad stuff in that video is post-2020. I get that recency bias will make you put more stuff from the last few years into a joke video like this, but man stuff really did get bad recently compared to pre-2020, when we hired guys like Buzz and Fuente
The article says it was announced Wednesday and is dated 22 April.
CLASS WAR VETERAN
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2 months 2 weeks
# | Whit Babcock Announces his retirement effective June 30, 2026 So long, my sweet prince. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/ZTfVQQrI7A— Deablo fan account (@DeferredWalkOn) April 23, 2026
TEU