Editor,
I find it deplorable the way UNM has been squandering students' hard-earned tuition money. The first shock was learning that Ritchie McKay was being paid $500,000 a year by UNM. Next came the $600,000 it took to fire McKay, so we could get a new coach instead of letting McKay's contract run its course. Finally, as if that wasn't bad enough, UNM announced that it is going to pay the new head coach, Steve Alford, $975,000.
It seems strange that a so-called academic institution would pay its basketball coach 10 times as much as a full professor. It wasn't even a month ago that the Legislature passed a bill to ensure that students currently receiving the Lottery Scholarship will be exempt from future tuition increases.
Perhaps before suffering yet another tuition hike, it is time for a complete public audit of the athletics programs at UNM. Maybe then the students can decide whether or not they are willing to pay the price for a winning sports team. We could determine once and for all if college athletics are the big moneymaker they claim to be, or just an increasingly deep pit for all of our tuition money.
Andrew Collord
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UNM student
