"The administrators are jealous over what big state schools like Alabama, Michigan and the like get in publicity over their football teams, and want to feel like big shots, too. "
The Midwest and south are parts of the country where college football is a big deal. The Northeast isn’t. Who is UNH playing anyway? How would they possibly get “publicity”? They’re not playing Notre Dame or Penn State or USC, are they?
I spent all of yesterday, about 15 hours, watching college football. I like college football a lot. I believe if you have good football team, the alums will be falling over themselves to donate money.
I don’t see many donating money for libraries (lot of them do for buildings to put their name on it). So it sounds bad when a librarian gives 4 million but designates only 100k to library, they can’t find other study related areas to spend it on.
Everyone is assuming that money could easily be designated for certain things. I wouldn’t assume anything. When I was in college, I remember a professor saying that money could be specified in a donation for a scoreboard but not for whatever the new technology was for research, as an example. Things may have changed, or be different in different states or colleges.
@pizzagirl:
They don’t owe anybody anything (other than hopefully being accountable to their taxpayers). However, when they do something like this they aren’t immune from the criticism being thrown their way, either, people have every right to comment on a public college doing something like this, the way that people made fun of a Texas high school spending 20 million on a football stadium, the school had every right to do that, I am sure the local people were thrilled, but that doesn’t mean it absolves them from criticism, either, or being made fun of shrug.
As far as publicity, it is all relative. You think the head of UNH is not aware of the kind of prestige football brings to places like Alabama and U Mich and isn’t jealous? Take a look at the justification for the 25 million dollar program to upgrade the stadium, and it gives a clue “symbol of excellence” and “prestige of other landmarks on the campus”…as you point out, UNH is an FCS division one team, which means they are not at the level of the FBS schools (Alabama, U mich, LSU, etc), they have less players on scholarship and generally play less demanding teams, and are also less likely to have players go to the pros. That said, it is still a division one team, they have athletic scholarships, and football still has some cachet to it at that level (just ask Carson Wentz, he went to an FCS school, is the starting QB of Philadelphia Eagles this season) and the words of the campaign to update the stadium tell a bigger picture. You would figure they would think symbols of excellence and the like would be more like achievements in research and science and teaching for a school like that…
I really wish people would read what I said and not put their usual copious novel-length words in my mouth. I never said no one had the right to criticize UNH. I merely said that UNH doesn’t owe any of us an explanation (except perhaps NH taxpayers).
I assume it is more like a big TV, with graphics, ads, scores, etc, that is also waterproof and you can see in the sun. The scoreboards in the Jacksonville Jags stadium cost $100 million dollars (but of course there are 2 of them for that bargain price!) Almost all stadiums have big screens, even the old stadiums like Fenway that still have manual scoreboards too. I was at a concert last week and my friend said “I don’t remember big screens here.” I pointed out that it had been about 30 years since she’d been to this venue (Red Rocks, owned by the City of Denver) and advancements in technology have come a long way. Tickets were also 10x what they were 30 years ago, and the audience expects more.
UNH is D1, so play ‘real’ teams - Dartmouth, Elon, URI, James Madison, Towson, Albany this year. Other teams may also use the stadium - soccer, lacrosse, track. It may be used for concerts, high school sports, marching band competitions or anything else they can think of to rent it out. This may be the biggest stadium in the state.
I think the point of renting it out is a really good one. It might wind up being a net moneymaker.
^it’d be nice if the moneymaker was then used for instructional needs, academic facilities, and scholarships.
(UNH is the worst when it comes to student debt and can’t compare to other New England campuses. Although it ranks around Iowa State or USC Columbia, if you’ve visited all three you see the difference.)
@pizzagirl:
My apologies, my statement about them not being above being criticized for it was not aimed at your post, I was simply agreeing with your statement that they didn’t owe anyone an explanation (other than maybe taxpayers, students and faculty of the school). The rest was all my commentary, it should have been in another paragraph so it wouldn’t look like it was about your post.
Note that this is the very same school that made news last April for the $17,570 dining hall table (seats 16).
But they don’t share checking accounts (or at least shouldn’t be). The athletic department funding at the big time athletic schools run their own funding, which is often in surplus. Big 10 and SEC tv deals are in the billion$$$ and that money is being dumped into stadiums and training facilities. The academic side of the school doesn’t see this money but at least the burden of paying for a scoreboard is not on them… usually. I guess the non-Power 5 conference schools don’t have this luxury.
Maybe someday we will look back and remember when UNH wasn’t playing for football national championships. How did Gonzaga become a basketball power? And remember the reverse happens and powerhouses fade away. Loyola of Chicago has a national championship in basketball as does Texas Western! What about the University of Chicago who has 2 football national titles before dropping football?
UNH has the worst state funding in the USA–hence the high tuition etc. Dont cry for the cheap NH taxpayers. http://www.wmur.com/news/huddleston-unh-thriving-despite-lack-of-state-funding/31326028
I have very mixed emotions on this. do I think the school should “waste” 1 million of the donation on a score board? NO! but he did not specify it’s use so it is kosher. I do not understand why sports are even part of college but that is my own pet peeve.
My comment on this is that it was an unbelievably boneheaded PR move. Since money really is pretty much fungible, they should have pretended that this money wasn’t going to the scoreboard.
I live in NH. My oldest son is a sophomore at UNH. He will graduate with a hefty amount of loans. I disagree with those people saying we don’t pay taxes…we pay quite a bit in taxes actually. Our property taxes are through the roof. We pay tolls to drive on our highways & the cost to register a vehicle is higher than everywhere else. Plus, many of us work in Mass & pay full Mass income taxes. I am saddened by how this money was spent. It definitely should have gone toward education, which seemed to be this man’s life story.
Even with hefty property taxes, NH’s tax burden is one of the lowest in the country. There are only a couple toll roads in the state and the tolls are pretty low (visit the midAtlantic area if you want to see substantial tolls). Paying Mass tax revenue goes to MA and not NH.
http://www.e50plus.com/public/203.cfm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States
https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494/
When you work in one state and live in another (mass seems to be included), you get taxed in the work state as a non resident, and usually your home state gives you credit for taxes paid to another jurisdiction . I don’t know how that works for NH, since NH has no state income tax. I live in NJ and work in NY state, and I file as non resident NY resident, NJ gives me a credit for the taxes paid there, then NJ and NY work out who owes what.
The reason that NH has high property taxes is because the schools are entirely paid for by the locality (I had a lot of friends who worked in mass and lived in NH), and because there is no state income tax, very little if any funding for schools comes from the state. UNH like all state schools depends on the state for some of its budget, but if you have no income tax likely there isn’t the money to support the state schools (state school tuition is generally cheaper for in state residents because of tax support, it isn’t because state schools are cheaper to run or more efficient than private ones). They are only less than my dear old home state, NJ, and Illinois, but both NJ and Ilinois have income taxes, so NH’s total tax burden is around the middle of the pack (a little less than 10%).
States with low or no income taxes with schools (leaving out state colleges, talking public schools) fall into two categories with property taxes, the towns in those states with low property taxes tend to have crappy schools, the towns with good schools tend to have high property taxes (it does vary, also depends on local tax base as well, my town for NJ has relatively low property taxes but has good schools, because we have a lot of corporate buildings and office parks and ratables in the town, if all you have is houses, the property tax bill is much higher).
Given how expensive the school is to in state students, and the academic needs of the school, it sounds to me like NH taxpayers, especially those whose kids go there, should be the ones asking why.
NH actually has a state level education property tax to even the playing field between wealthier towns and less wealthy towns with an attempt to provide a quality education for all students regardless of where they live in the state. It’s an imperfect system but better than it used.
If you look at my links above in post #56, you’ll see that NH’s tax burden is one of the lowest out of the 50 states - usually in the bottom 2 to 4 states depending on source. It definitely isn’t in the middle of the pack despite high property taxes once you factor in all sources of tax revenue.
whoooo givves a crap?!? like if you dont go to that college stop freaking out! Why are people even arguing about this?!?