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Has college football become a campus commodity?

November 18, 2012 4:54 PM

Bigger is better in college football, where new stadiums and longer seasons can mean big revenue for schools. Armen Keteyian reports.

Has college football become a campus commodity?

60 Minutes OverTimeBehind the scenes with Michigan football

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by ErrolFlynn05 November 21, 2012 4:57 PM EST
$5 Million in coaching salaries. $133 million in revenues from football. The cost of a college degree in the United States has increased '12 fold' over the past 30 years, far outpacing the price inflation of consumer goods, medical expenses and food. According to Bloomberg, college tuition and fees have increased 1120 percent since records began in 1978, 53 % of all college graduates in 2011 were unable to find a job upon graduation. All the while signing unwary students up for student loans the most predatory form of lending in U.S. history. Millions of Students Permanently Entrapped in Debt Many students, whether or not they graduate, have debt burdens approaching or exceeding $100,000. If repaid over 30 years, it's a $500,000 obligation, and if default, much more because debts aren't forgiven. As a result, once entrapped, escape is impossible. Bondage is permanent, and future lives and careers are impaired or ruined. Congress ended bankruptcy protections, refinancing rights, statutes of limitations, truth in lending requirements, fair debt collection ones, and state usury laws when applied to federally guaranteed student loans. As a result, lenders may freely garnish wages, income tax refunds, earned income tax credits, as well as Social Security and disability income to assure defaulted loan payments. In addition, defaulting may cause loss of professional licenses, making repayment even harder or impossible. Moreover, under a congressionally established default loan fee system, holders may keep 20% of all payments before any portion is applied to principle and interest due. A borrower's only recourse is to request an onerous and expensive "loan rehabilitation" procedure, requiring extended payments (not applied to principle or interest), then arrange a new loan for which additional fees are incurred. As a result, for many, permanent debt bondage is assured. In addition, no appeals process allows determinations of default challenges under a process letting lenders rip off borrowers, many in perpetuity. Moreover, lenders thrive on bad debts, deriving income from inflated service charges and collection fees. They're more than ever today as default rates soar, lifetime rates now nearly one-third of undergraduate loans, higher than for subprime mortgages. In fact, they're higher than for any other lending instrument and rising. Soaring Defaults During Hard Times. Since America's economic crisis began in late 2007, an April 21, 2009 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Anne Marie Chaker article highlighted the burden on students headlined, "Student Loans: Default Rates are Soaring," saying: The combination of economic weakness, rising tuitions and poor job prospects caused defaults on student loans to skyrocket. According to Department of Education numbers for those federally guaranteed, estimated FY 2007 default rates reached 6.9%, up from 4.6% two years earlier. Conditions are now far worse according to a February 4, 2011 Mary Pilon and Melissa Korn WSJ article headlined, "Student-Loan Default Rates Worsen," saying: They "rose to 13.8% from 11.8% for students beginning repayment in (FY) 2008 compared with those starting a year earlier," according to new Department of Education data. They measure defaults within the first three years of repayment. Over their lifetime, however, they approach two and a half times that level, perhaps heading for 50% if economic conditions keep deteriorating while tuition and fee rates rise. America today is characterized by a combination of rising poverty, unemployment, home foreclosures, homelessness, hunger, student debt entrapment, and despair, mocking the notion of a fair and equitable society. This is the real story that you should be covering.
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by CTYanker November 20, 2012 7:57 AM EST
What a flimsy segment! Please 60M, give us stuff we don't already know. Scandal, shame, evil alumni, inked up "students" driving BMWs, kids who don't graduate and end up penniless, low academic standards for players, worthless degrees. You know--the dirty lowdown!
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by DoubleR1028 November 19, 2012 4:30 PM EST
Look no further to what happened in the Big Ten today. Maryland and Rutgers joining the conference with one motive in mind... money. Maryland had to cut 7 sports this year because of major financial issues in the Athletics Department. So joining the Big Ten is potentially a $100MM move for them. Meanwhile the Big Ten Network stands to make another $100MM (or more) by being carried on cable systems in NY/NJ/MD. Unreal.
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by commonsenseisdeadnow November 19, 2012 9:59 AM EST
It has been quite evident to be for many years that college athletics has become as corrupt as boxing. A four-team play-off in football will not solve that problem. The real problem as I see it is the structure of how we are given acces tot he games. Think about it: ESPN is our major source of information for college athletics. ESPN is owned by Disney, who, in turn, owns thousands of local media oulets throughout the U.S., including several whose writers make up the A.P. Poll. Essentially, Disney tells us who the best two football teams are (and the best of any ranked sport that isn't based solely on record), and then they reap the profits of matching up those two teams. We have allowed athletics to turn into entertainment for the masses. In the end, it isn't just the fans that suffer: the athletes suffer because we don't really give them a true education, the sports suffer due to inherent corruption, and the U.S. suffers since we are distracted by fixed events with irrelevant participants instead of figuring out ways to make us sustainable as a country on a long-term basis. I'll give you a hint: having the world's highest per capita entertainment expense is not the way we survive for another 100 years or more. Just ask Rome...
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by mielmani November 19, 2012 9:55 AM EST
Uhhh...when was this show taped: the 1950's?? University footfall has been a "commodity" for what seems like forever, with money diverted toward football and athletes' programs, while other university programs suffer. A typical university with a relatively strong football program is a microcosm of the real world: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. So what else is new?
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by TomWayburn November 19, 2012 12:25 AM EST
I have been a Michigan football fan since my father took me to the 1941 Michigan-Notre Dame game at Michigan stadium. In those days, deep pockets could get you closer to the 50-yard line and closer to the action; but, no matter how much money you could afford to spend, you sat on a hard wood bench. (Please correct me if that's not true.) In recent times, I see more and more that I don't like until I am very close to giving up college football altogether as a bad idea. For example, the chance that someone will be seriously injured has become the certainty that someone will be seriously injured. But, the real problems comes from aiding and abetting an unsustainable consumerist economy represented by television advertising (nearly all false) that is destroying the world. The strong and wrong pizza salesman is simply the last man in the world whose influence I would tolerate in an educational institution. Sadly, the universities of the United States are morally and intellectually bankrupt and very close to the breaking point of the "academic bubble". Attending the modern American university has become financially ruinous and no longer the reasonable choice.
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by ApolloMissionControl November 18, 2012 11:28 PM EST
The NCAA needs to make Freshman ineligible and keep them away from coaches and athletic department tutors and advisers until at least their 2nd semester in school. It's hard to believe that many of those Bama players can perform even on an 8th grade level after hearing them speak to the media.
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by Mustelid November 18, 2012 9:12 PM EST
Disgraceful. So many students entering college require remedial classes in reading and math. US students rank last in math and science in the industrial world. Recent CBS story stated 3 million jobs in US go unfilled because Americans aren't qualified. This emphasis on football and sports is American stupidity at its worst. Education should be our top priority. Play games on your own time with your own money. I will never donate a dime to any university that places sports over education or pays a coach $5 million per year. No wonder other countries continue to surpass us in math, science, and technology. We are laughing stocks and it shows in the dullard players who graduate university on a sports scholarship and can barely read.
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by thom2737 November 18, 2012 8:59 PM EST
This was a nice piece but it totally leaves out a big issue that is being discussed by everyone on college campuses these days. Does this really contribute to a public universities goal to educate its students? We forget that these are institutions funded in a large part by state and federal money wether by direct grants to the university or tuition loans and grants provided to the students by the state or federal governments. From what it looks like they are using their billoion dollar budgets to build big stadiums and make investments not related to educating our citizens.
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