Rutgers women's basketball coach gets huge raise.

[Robson]

If college sports is making all this money for the universities, why are they not using it to offset the cost of a college education instead of paying the coaches huge 6 figure salaries (regardless of their sex or sport)?

Something is wrong with our priorities.

http://msn.foxsports.com/wcbk/story/6735388?MSNHPHMA

Rutgers women's basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer will be paid the same base salary as football coach Greg Schiano under a seven-year contract extension announced Wednesday.

Stringer will earn $450,000 in base pay and could earn up to $500,000 in additional compensation under terms of the agreement, Rutgers said. Schiano signed an extension in February with $450,000 in base pay but a total compensation package worth about $1.5 million per year.

[MadMaddie]

1. You know I agree with you to a point but...

Something important here has happened..

She is getting paid the same salary as the Football coach.....a trend has to start somewhere...what better place than a college campus?

[Tellurian]

2. Yep,

she earns her daily bread and deserves just compensation.

and a joyful Rec..

[Catchawave]

3. Good for her...she brought that team to #2 in the country

Coaches are usually rewarded for great seasons...and happy alums :party:

[jedr]

4. Sports bring money INTO a university;

The more notoriety a school can get the more money comes in; in enrollment . grants, ticket revenues and alumni donations etc....I think she earned every penny. Sports are not the reason tuitions are rising.

[spooky3]

5. maybe because without her skill and hard work, they would not

have made nearly as much money from college sports in the first place?

AND

They ARE using it to offset the cost of a college education for many students.

In most universities, a few sports bring in money for ALL of the other "minor" sports, played by both men and women. Sports like soccer and tennis and lacrosse generally depend on the money brought in by football and basketball, if any of them make money at all. Students who might not otherwise be able to attend college get athletic scholarships. Many are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Very few of these students make it as pro athletes later, so their education is extremely important.

[Robson]

6. University compensation has become outrageous for a select few

That's the same argument that corporate board of directors, made up of CEO peers, use to justify the continuing 25 year double digit escalation of compensation of CEOs.

Not one college coach.....paid with public dollars that supposedly has an interest in his/her players first, is worth more than 250K-300K a year. $1.5 million dollars for this coach is outrageous. This entire concept of worth has been skewed to favor an elitist group at the top, at the expense of this country.

Universities should be looking for ways to cut cost so that more Americans can participate in higher education. Instead they are looking for ways to justify higher compensation for staff, coaches and university presidents.

[spooky3]

7. no, it is not the same argument.

The coach has far more to do with the success of the team than a CEO does of a company with thousands of employees and whose fate depends on many factors besides the CEO's effort and work. There are many other differences as well.

It is much easier to trace the impact of a coach's effort the team's success than it is in the case of most CEO's, and the financial impact of this success doesn't depend on currency exchange rates, inflation, unemployment, etc., etc., etc. And a successful coach's salary is MUCH more reflective of market conditions than are CEO salaries, which are often set by board members who serve on each other's boards and who constrain competition. Finally, do you have any idea what the difference is between this coach's salary (and that of many male coaches in football and basketball) versus the top American CEO salaries? CEOs of big companies make many more millions than these coaches do.

You have conveniently ignored the point made previously that many players could not attend school at all if not for the revenue generated by a few successful programs.

College educations are a bargain in the US. The premium in salary that graduates earn relative to the costs they pay over a lifetime is huge, to say nothing of the more important intangible factors of the value of the education itself. That is why far more international students want to come here to study than US students want to go to international universities.

[Robson]

9. Sports is highly overrated and doesn't help our nation become successful

This country should become academically oriented, not sports oriented. The total dollars taken out of the economy that goes to overpaid players and coaches should instead be utilized in making education better and more affordable. 1.5 Million per year coaches and 22 Million per year players and stadiums built at taxpayer expense doesn't help our nation become more successful...it does the opposite. She is overpaid and so are all the rest. Yes I played sports when I was young, but that was before it became huge business.

[MonkeyFunk]

8. ugh

I like her, and she's certainly a great coach. But it's so out of proportion to what teachers get paid, it rubs me the wrong way.

Yes, her team succeeded last year. but on the same campus, there is probably a teacher who is educating a future Nobel prize winner, a future Pulitzer prize winner, a future world leader. The results aren't as immediate, but the work is just as important, if not more so.

[primative1]

10. LoL ... I Hate College Sports ...

It should be made illegal to force actual students to subsidize sports for profit enterprises.
Speaking from my own experiences, I can remember that the only time I got to see the fancy parquet flooring of the school "arena" or the grandeur of the astro turfed football stadium was when they had class registrations there.
Asides from that I couldn't tell you what the school colors were and as far as attending these "events" .... between studying to try to make the grade and working full time to pay for it, who had the time?
So why do even division 3a schools need to pay up huge to build these monuments to stupidity and why is it added to the already staggering cost of education?
Stop the madness.

[Robson]

11. Agreed...it's big univ-business

It disgusts me that universities put sports ahead of academics. And it disgusts me further that taxpayers must subsidize super wealthy pro-sports owners and players.

[Honeycombe8]

12. It does seem a bit much, but it's supply & demand.....

she has proved herself to be an ace, and handled the Imus incident extremely well, contributing to making the team and the university shine in the eyes of public opinion.

I expect that she can go anywhere now and get a huge salary. So the university has to pay her to keep her.

It's what our capitalistic system is all about. And that's good, right? I mean, that's why I get a raise, right? My co. wants to reward me for a job well done, and keep me?