Letter: Money could be better spent

I am writing in response to two articles in the Oct. 20th issue of The Spectrum that almost made me sick.

The first was the article on the $3.4 million offices for the football team.

The article makes it clear that a good portion of the money came from donations, but does one team really need an office that cost almost as much as the two whole office buildings and lots NDSU just bought for the downtown campus?

Do each of the offices really need a flat screen TV, and does that film screening room really need leather embroidered seats?

I would like to know how much tuition money was spent on the office and how much was spent from the North Dakota general fund.

I would also like to know how much of my tax money the City of Fargo paid to put in the escalator.

The other article is “Win lose or draw, NDSU gets paid.”

It is not the fact that the NDSU football team is willing to sell its soul for $300,000 (which is proof that collegiate sports have lost their way) that made me want to puke, but the fact that the athletic department has a budget of $9,529,237.

Let’s put that in numbers we can all understand … that is about 1,980 in-state tuitions or $777.39 for each of NDSU's 12,258 students.

In fact, according to the NDSU Budget Offices Web site (http:// www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/budget_office/), that is more than any of the eight collages spent in fiscal year 2005, the next closest being science and math at $8.1 million.

Now don't get me wrong, I like sports as much as the next guy, but with tuition being increased 10 percent a year, and some of the classrooms I have class in being 10 or more years out of date, it seems to me that some of our money might be better spent.

Jon Berg
Junior
Civil Engineering