Rutgers standards and priorities must be re-evaluated

By Sidra Zia

According to the Targum’s Sept. 29 editorial “Big Ten, big bucks and big outrage,” Rutgers plans to spend $64.1 million over the next year on the Athletic Department in hopes of significant revenue. However, with this drastic action that is estimated to cost $183 million over the next nine years, according to economics professor Mark Killingsworth, it has shown its students and the watching world around it that it has lost sight of its priorities. Rutgers has shamelessly been using the façade of collective progression while clearly singling out athletics as far more important than any other department.

Not only does this decision point to Rutgers’ ignorance to recognize the elasticity of the sports business as well as the financial torrents that are caused by common administrative blunders (which Rutgers seems to have unique luck with), it points to Rutgers’ own failure to look at what’s really happening inside its classrooms. Clearly, the administration hasn’t analyzed the flaws of its own academic system — one that is supposedly designed to nurture morally upright intellectuals who are dedicated to service and the spreading of knowledge. Instead of doing things to propel an atmosphere that allows for the proper upbringing of these individuals, such as hiring tenured professors and funding research, it is avoiding the obvious notion that investment should be put where it is needed most. Rutgers has allocated hard-earned student tuition fees to an area that represents a mere extracurricular and luxury to most students on campus.

More>>

This entry was posted in Athletics, Student activism. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.