And this is a very interesting article about what AAU membership means, both good and bad.
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sorry if this has been posted before, but I think Vanderbilt and Mizzou are the only SEC AAU members.
So, graduating athletes you profit off of is not the priority. Bettering the future of these bodies battered for your Alma Mater are not the main concern. Itās sad how we do not prioritize graduating players but we care more about people who win awards for academic cache. People who usually have zero to do with athletics. Got it.
EDIT: Oddly, the last year with info shows Utah as the highest graduation rate.
simply math for the University of Utah shows:
- athletics is roughly a $100 million dollar enterprise annually
- research body of the university is nearly $700 million (growing at 7% annually with AAU status, previously 3%)
I love sports, but I think its fairly obvious which one plays a larger role in Utahās community and economy.
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According to this list: Texas A&M, University of Florida, Mizzou, and Vanderbilt are members. Texas will add one more.
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Plus TAMU in 2001. So, two of the current three are recent imports. The tea-sips in 2025 will make four.
HACK!! Listen to BamaFan.
This is shockingly true for all the SEC state schools as well.
But, donāt laugh at the athletics money. Universities, especially publics, fight tooth and nail for every dollar they can get.
According to the National Science Foundation, Alabama Tuscaloosaās R&D budget is about $63 million. Itās athletic budget is about $164.
Utahās R&D budget is about $380 million. Iām not certain what the athletic budget is, but, it may not even crack $100 million.
The NSF measurements may or may not be the right source to quote. Iām no expert.
Most people I know who attended Alabama went for Law, Business or the Arts. There are some engineering degrees but you are more likely to meet someone with a business or Pre-law degree.
Auburn would be more interesting. They have more the Agriculture and Science degrees. Alabama is to Ole Miss as Auburn is to Mississippi State.
Utahās research funding surpassed $600 million for the first time in 2020. I donāt know what it is yet for 2021? Utah is a relatively small player compared with the John Hopkins $3.5 billion, UCLA, UW, UCSD and UCSF who hover around $1.5 billion annually
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NSF is an important source of funding. NIH is really big in health sciences.
There are a wide variety of other funding sources - Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the V Foundationā¦ it goes on & on.
And weāre not even talking about the big donors, or medium sized donors.
Hereās a stat that is a little mind-boggling: Huntsman Cancer Foundation has over 1 million donors, from the Gates Foundation, the Huntsmans & Eccles families, to medium sized donors who want to make a difference, down to little kids who donate very small amounts.
The goal of Mr. Huntsman was to make it a broad-based donor foundation. āMany hands make light workā
Except for you no one here has said any of that.
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SEC schools to look at in these areas:
University of Florida
$153,701,978 2020 NIH RESEARCH GRANTS
Vanderbilt University
$496,048,583 2020 NIH RESEARCH GRANTS
I always forget University of Alabama Birmingham is a top University in this funding.
Nothing at all odd about that. Itās the way we run our program. We are very proud of it. In addition to the outstanding graduation rate, we have an exceptional academic reputation as an institution. We are proud of that too. Itās possible to do both things. Thatās the type of institution that makes up the Pac-12, the Big Ten, and I think the ACC.
Weird how Alabama has higher numbers than Clemson and Ohio State who you want to associate with and you crap on Alabama as āwhatās wrong with college football.ā
You are constantly making comments about AAU and Nobel prize as if that matters more in this convo than graduating minority players.
One of our goals is to attract new faculty from many of those schools, Vanderbilt, Michigan, the Ivy league schools, etc. We have faculty from all over - PAC schools, B1G schools, Vandy, Ivy League, and many other schools.
In turn, we try to get our best grad students & post-docs to apply for faculty positions at big name schools, which seems counter intuitive - why not keep them around? - but itās a long term strategy to reach up & pull ourselves up to the highest tiers.
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BamaFan, this is how weāve decided to cope with the fact that the SEC is good in football right now. We either accuse the SEC of being being shady or we accuse the SEC of caring less about academics than we do. Take it as a compliment.
As for me, if you offer me a football title or another nobel prize winner on campus, Iāll take the football title. And Iāll still be proud of what Utah academics has done for me and for a million other regular joes. Iām glad the season is starting soon. I hope Stanford talks academic smack after the game when we beat them on Nov 5.
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Iām fine with academics talk but it needs to be focused on the players. If they arenāt graduating (like Ohio State) then there is an issue. I donāt care if their degree isnāt āelite.ā Most of these guys are first generation graduates. Many of Alabamaās players are first generation and descended from enslaved people. I want to see those rates be high before a Nobel prize.
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lol - this is a sports board connected with a university & itās athletic programs. The lift we got as a university from joining the PAC is undeniable, and strong.
Kudos to Alabama and all other programs that get these kids engaged in academics. If thereās an academic competition between schools in recruiting, great. That benefits everyone, that benefits our nation.
Looking from the other side of the equation, sports are a vital marketing engine for universities. Iāve had to make that justification for faculty who would prefer we become more Ivy League.
Striking that balance and achieving excellence in all areas is the goal.
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Remembering back to my graduation with my Bachelors degree in 1989, my lead instructor congratulated me for getting a Masters-level education, but unfortunately only having a Bachelors degree to show for it. It was the blessing and bane of graduating from a major research institution - even in the Social Sciences. That said, the added value helped me adapt as needed over the years to the changing job markets; and made my work in government far more productive.
What was interesting (and I know it was likely a cattle call out to fill an enrollment cohort) but I got contacted by U$C to see if I was interested in getting a PhD. It would be a blast to get one, but I donāt know how I would pay for that. When you are an old fart, the costs matter.
What does this have to do with the topic? Absolutely nothing.
To the topic, if B1G and PAC 12 were just looking at athletics and media markets only, the plate of Universities for expansion would be a pick āem. Adding the tier 1 research university requirement shrinks the pool a lot. Banding together with the ACC to hopefully develop some form of counterbalance to creating an exclusionary āfarm systemā out of football, and to continue a focus on academics, does have merit.
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