Why can t the athletics budget be used to address infrastructure needs?
The entire budget for men s and women s intercollegiate athletics makes up only 4 percent of the university s total operating budget. It is not large enough to finance a very big portion of the $150.7 million recurring funding gap. If the entire athletics budget were used in one year to cover about one-third of the recurring institutional deficit, these funds would not be available the following year, as the athletics program would cease to exist. The UT Austin athletics budget is almost wholly self-sustaining. Because the program is so successful, the University allocates little funding to intercollegiate athletics which is not the case for most universities in the country. Most have programs that are far from self-sustaining and that require large subsidies from sources that otherwise would be used to operate the academic enterprise. Several years ago, UT Austin began to provide a subsidy to athletics to finance new women s sports so that we would comply with Title IX requirements. T
