[2006alum]

Really sad but in my view eventually inevitable. For all the talk of student-athletes being exploited, 99+% of D1 scholarship athletes generate less in revenue than they cost. Lean times are coming from universities all the way down the food chain...

...and speaking of which, I wonder whether Stanford was motivated in part to send a signal: I was catching up with a former boss today whose colleague is on the Harvard University Board of Overseers. The colleague said that when they were deciding to go all-online for 20-21 and also not reduce tuition, they were cognizant of the fact that they would be the first mover and that while Harvard's endowment could support taking the revenue hit of lowering tuition, they knew many universities could not, so Harvard could take the brunt of the criticism and create space for others to follow without (as much) incident. 

I wonder if Stanford decisionmakers had that in mind as well. If $$$tanford "can't" support these sports, how can others? But if a mid-tier university is the first to make such an announcement, there will be serious questions about their overall financial solvency. Instead, Stanford comes off looking a bit cheap - just like Harvard did when they announced Zoom University 2020-21 without the tuition reduction.

I hope that's the case, because otherwise the mismatch between the claimed revenue hole and the university's overall financial footprint is hard to square. As many others have cogently noted, Stanford has for 40+ years been a academic+athletic excellence institution regardless of whether every unit of the university is bringing in $$$.

[2006alum]

Really sad but in my view eventually inevitable. For all the talk of student-athletes being exploited, 99+% of D1 scholarship athletes generate less in revenue than they cost. Lean times are coming from universities all the way down the food chain...

...and speaking of which, I wonder whether Stanford was motivated in part to send a signal: I was catching up with a former boss today whose colleague is on the Harvard University Board of Overseers. The colleague said that when they were deciding to go all-online for 20-21 and also not reduce tuition, they were cognizant of the fact that they would be the first mover and that while Harvard's endowment could support taking the revenue hit of lowering tuition, they knew many universities could not, so Harvard could take the brunt of the criticism and create space for others to follow without (as much) incident. 

I wonder if Stanford decisionmakers had that in mind as well. If $$$tanford "can't" support these sports, how can others? But if a mid-tier university is the first to make such an announcement, there will be serious questions about their overall financial solvency. Instead, Stanford comes off looking a bit cheap - just like Harvard did when they announced Zoom University 2020-21 without the tuition reduction.

I hope that's the case, because otherwise the mismatch between the claimed revenue hole and the university's overall financial footprint is hard to square. As many others have cogently noted, Stanford has for 40+ years been a academic+athletic excellence institution regardless of whether every unit of the university is bringing in $$$.