[albatross]

Made the following assumptions about rough classes income brackets:

- Those at the low end, eligible for financial aid. May be eligible for complete housing/tuition financial aid, but likely to leave school with some amount of debt

- Those in the middle, above meaningful thresholds for financial aid. Perhaps family pays for some tuition/housing, but student is saddled with some amount of debt (full cost of tuition/housing or some fraction depending on family contribution)

- Students in the highest tier have education and housing covered by family or another source. No student loans after graduation.

My issue here is that graduate in the first two categories have less freedom to pursue their career goals compared to a student unburdened by debt. Paying off student loans becomes a driving factor for decisions made after graduation.

Agree that sports and similar are likely unnecessary money sinks, but I don't know whether in some cases these actually bring in more money than they cost (via donations, reputation, or otherwise), but I doubt it.

[runevault]

Sports it heavily depends. Mega successful sports schools (Alabama for example) make money. Also some tiny schools make money by getting paid high 6 or even 7 figures per game to play as a cupcake against the mega schools as a way to pad out a schedule. The schools in between are a much more nuanced conversation and I'm not sure where the dividing lines are.