Recession Forces Schools To Cut Sports

May 14th, 2009

It’s official: the latest victim of the recession, is the higher education system – specifically, college sports teams. From cross-country to skiing, schools have been forced to halt scholarships and cut some teams entirely or face troubling budget deficits.

Here is a small sampling of the colleges affected: Stanford University’s fencing team will have to find some non-Ivy funding fast or be forced to put away their swords; the University of Cincinnati will no longer offer scholarships for men in cross-country, track, or swimming; and the University of Washington is cutting all of its swimming teams in order to cut back on $1.2 million in spending.

The trend is continuing at universities big and small, and teams as popular as soccer and as lesser-known as competitive pistol are feeling the crunch. The NY Times warns that this could “deeply alter the college sports landscape” while also affecting the country’s performance during future Olympic events.

Let’s just hope that the situation doesn’t reach as dire proportions as the Space Olympics did.

To read more about it, head over to the NY Times.

– Genevieve M. Blaber

Entry Filed under: College Trends, General, News