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Texas AD Chris Del Conte


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On 8/19/2020 at 1:54 PM, Cairn Horn88 said:

I’m really grappling with whether to attend the games here in Austin.  It’s just not gonna be the same, obviously.  I haven’t missed a home game since 1968, so skipping this year would be tough. I have a little time to decide.

get you a N95 mask and hand sanitizer.....go have fun

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On 8/24/2020 at 10:51 AM, Armybrat said:

Latest email from Bellmont.... for only $50 .... send in your favorite photo of yourself, family member or pet and you are in the stadium...

 

0454321F-CC6F-4FBC-856E-30FD7FA9BC99.jpeg

$200 for a cut out of Vic's girls, since they take four seats. 

Edited by Deej
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I think CDC's doing a very good job overall. The AD at Texas has to balance the interests (and demands) of so many different and varied persons/groups (aside from the recent social unrest annoyances), and all while running the everyday operation of the multi-million-dollar business that is UT athletics. If he'd just shit-can Plonsky I'd rate him as excellent.

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On 8/4/2020 at 5:51 PM, LTtxfan said:

 

This is misleading.  My son's a senior in Engineering and he has no choice - all of his classes are now online.  I'd say it's like more 75-80% of students will not attend any classes, and easily 60% of classes are online only.  Very few students can "opt" for anything.

Nevertheless, they cranked up his tuition $1k per semester for this.  The students took up a petition to nix it (of course that wasn't going to go anywhere) but I wrote the Engineering dept. and asked why the monumental (25%) increase in tuition (avg. this year is 7%) considering students won't be utilizing many on-campus things (and the fees therefore could be at most last year's) and she wrote a very nice letter basically telling me nothing.

Hate to say it, but I think UT is enjoying the gouging process.  Thankfully he's on the other side of this thing so I only have to grit my teeth one more semester as my wallet gets very thin.

Edited by phdhorn
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1 hour ago, phdhorn said:

This is misleading.  My son's a senior in Engineering and he has no choice - all of his classes are now online.  I'd say it's like more 75-80% of students will not attend any classes, and easily 60% of classes are online only.  Very few students can "opt" for anything.

Nevertheless, they cranked up his tuition $1k per semester for this.  The students took up a petition to nix it (of course that wasn't going to go anywhere) but I wrote the Engineering dept. and asked why the monumental (25%) increase in tuition (avg. this year is 7%) considering students won't be utilizing many on-campus things (and the fees therefore could be at most last year's) and she wrote a very nice letter basically telling me nothing.

Hate to say it, but I think UT is enjoying the gouging process.  Thankfully he's on the other side of this thing so I only have to grit my teeth one more semester as my wallet gets very thin.

UT's current budget isn't gouging anyone. The funding coming from the state and Permanent Fund is going to be significantly cut starting in 21. Donations are also likely to take a big hit. 

Tuition only funds 22% of the budget. Just to give you an idea of expensive it is to maintain a campus, there's over 3 billion dollars in backlogged maintenance. That doesn't include new buildings or renovations of existing old buildings.  

https://budget.utexas.edu/about/budget

But yea, charging full tuition for online classes sucks, but UT has fixed costs regardless of whether or not people are on campus.  

Edited by totallynotabuttpirate
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2 hours ago, phdhorn said:

This is misleading.  My son's a senior in Engineering and he has no choice - all of his classes are now online.  I'd say it's like more 75-80% of students will not attend any classes, and easily 60% of classes are online only.  Very few students can "opt" for anything.

Nevertheless, they cranked up his tuition $1k per semester for this.  The students took up a petition to nix it (of course that wasn't going to go anywhere) but I wrote the Engineering dept. and asked why the monumental (25%) increase in tuition (avg. this year is 7%) considering students won't be utilizing many on-campus things (and the fees therefore could be at most last year's) and she wrote a very nice letter basically telling me nothing.

Hate to say it, but I think UT is enjoying the gouging process.  Thankfully he's on the other side of this thing so I only have to grit my teeth one more semester as my wallet gets very thin.

Dig into the funding numbers and you'll see the people you should be complaining to are your state representative and senator. Adjusting for inflation, current state funding for higher ed is roughly $3 billion less than it was in 2008. That number takes into account the most recent legislative session that increased funding by just over $1 billion, which is progress, but doesn't make up for over a decade of neglect/cuts, especially when you consider we've added ~4.7M new residents over the same time period.

To bring things back on topic, I think Del Conte is doing about as good a job as anyone could hope for given the challenging circumstances. 

Edited by Baconboy
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42 minutes ago, totallynotabuttpirate said:

UT's current budget isn't gouging anyone. The funding coming from the state and Permanent Fund is going to be significantly cut starting in 21. Donations are also likely to take a big hit. 

Tuition only funds 22% of the budget. Just to give you an idea of expensive it is to maintain a campus, there's over 3 billion dollars in backlogged maintenance. That doesn't include new buildings or renovations of existing old buildings.  

https://budget.utexas.edu/about/budget

But yea, charging full tuition for online classes sucks, but UT has fixed costs regardless of whether or not people are on campus.  

This is correct.  The budget for higher ed in Texas is going to be bad in 21-22, which is what most higher ed administrators are freaking out about right now.  They know those cuts from the state are coming.  They can offset this (a little, not a lot) through higher enrollments. 

 

Students (and parents) always get upset that tuition keeps going up, but they often fail to realize why.  Tuition increases come because the state has significantly cut the amount of funding they are giving colleges and universities.  The reason why is cloak room related so I'll stop right there. 

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49 minutes ago, totallynotabuttpirate said:

UT's current budget isn't gouging anyone. The funding coming from the state and Permanent Fund is going to be significantly cut starting in 21. Donations are also likely to take a big hit. 

Tuition only funds 22% of the budget. Just to give you an idea of expensive it is to maintain a campus, there's over 3 billion dollars in backlogged maintenance. That doesn't include new buildings or renovations of existing old buildings.  

https://budget.utexas.edu/about/budget

But yea, charging full tuition for online classes sucks, but UT has fixed costs regardless of whether or not people are on campus.  

Sorry, a 25% increase in one year is by no means ordinary, and they couldn't give me a good reason for it.

And the discussion of where the money comes from/is needed etc. well that's nothing new.  Been like that for almost a decade.  Few people don't understand that tuition only goes a certain length to help.

But gee, isn't it just interesting that during this lil' virus thingy that many schools (not just universities but a lot of lower level education) are whomping tuition, "online" fees, and "new" stuff "due to the pandemic" yet not taking/cutting monies that aren't spent by not having students in classes?  And trust me, the students were pissed because it was so steep and unusual - they feel they're being unduly hit up (i.e gouged) to make up some of this difference.  And I agree.  Much of UT didn't go up a lot, but most of the larger colleges did - never that much in one budget period.

I get that they need their dough, and I sympathize with them to a point.  But that's a little harsh for one way to recover it.  And it's gouging us. But don't worry, I've bent over and paid it, what else can you do?  One more semester.....

Edited by phdhorn
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2 hours ago, phdhorn said:

This is misleading.  My son's a senior in Engineering and he has no choice - all of his classes are now online.  I'd say it's like more 75-80% of students will not attend any classes, and easily 60% of classes are online only.  Very few students can "opt" for anything.

Nevertheless, they cranked up his tuition $1k per semester for this.  The students took up a petition to nix it (of course that wasn't going to go anywhere) but I wrote the Engineering dept. and asked why the monumental (25%) increase in tuition (avg. this year is 7%) considering students won't be utilizing many on-campus things (and the fees therefore could be at most last year's) and she wrote a very nice letter basically telling me nothing.

Hate to say it, but I think UT is enjoying the gouging process.  Thankfully he's on the other side of this thing so I only have to grit my teeth one more semester as my wallet gets very thin.

There’s some non-budgeted capital expenses happening in the way of building signage this semester, and the reprinting of campus maps and such that accompany the changes. 

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58 minutes ago, totallynotabuttpirate said:

UT's current budget isn't gouging anyone. The funding coming from the state and Permanent Fund is going to be significantly cut starting in 21. Donations are also likely to take a big hit. 

Tuition only funds 22% of the budget. Just to give you an idea of expensive it is to maintain a campus, there's over 3 billion dollars in backlogged maintenance. That doesn't include new buildings or renovations of existing old buildings.  

https://budget.utexas.edu/about/budget

But yea, charging full tuition for online classes sucks, but UT has fixed costs regardless of whether or not people are on campus.  

The "fixed" costs are less than 1/3 of the costs though....

How about lowering some of those non-fixed costs for a change

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1 hour ago, Pancho said:

This is correct.  The budget for higher ed in Texas is going to be bad in 21-22, which is what most higher ed administrators are freaking out about right now.  They know those cuts from the state are coming.  They can offset this (a little, not a lot) through higher enrollments. 

 

Students (and parents) always get upset that tuition keeps going up, but they often fail to realize why.  Tuition increases come because the state has significantly cut the amount of funding they are giving colleges and universities.  The reason why is cloak room related so I'll stop right there. 

All true, but university administrators have to take a bunch of the blame themselves.  Over the past 25 years tuition at all schools have skyrocketed relative to inflation, not just Texas publics.  Other states' publics and privates everywhere.  Why is that???

And, yes, CDC is doing an excellent job overall.

Edited by TrashMaster G
CDC is cool.
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The impending funding shortfall raises the question whether the endowment could be tapped to a larger extent than normal. If I am to believe this article from the Texan, the total endowment grew from $11 billion to $31 billion between 2009 to 2019, and more improbably from $19 billion to 31 billion in the last year????

https://thedailytexan.com/2019/03/07/ut-now-has-the-second-largest-endowment-in-the-country-what-does-that-mean

Quote

Last month, The Daily Texan reported that the UT system now has the country’s second largest endowment at $31 billion. 

 

Quote

With the help of the discovery of oil and advancements in withdrawing it, the value of the fund drastically increased. Ten years ago, the fund was around $11 billion. Last year, that sum was $19.5 billion. Today, it’s second only to Harvard.

The article references multiple funds and sources of endowment funding so I'm not sure that $19 billion to 31 billion is the same group of funds, its unclear. Its difficult to find a chart showing growth of the endowment over the years. 

In any case, I get that tapping into the endowment more than you need to limits future growth, but what is the point of the endowment. At what point would they feel comfortable spending more. $60 billion, $600 billion? How big does it need to be? If an endowment also serves as a rainy day fund in times of emergency, I struggle to see how our current scenario wouldnt qualify. On the other hand, there may be specific guidelines that limit how much can be accessed in any calendar year, etc... I have no idea how that works. 

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We used to have to drive five hours to home games and pay more and more for our craptacular seats so we let our season tickets go years ago. CDC definitely doesn’t have my email address. Just curious if any of you who have heard from him have suggested he needs to cut the dead wood in the athletic department first and what his response was 

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9 minutes ago, Goodman said:

 

Too many. 

 

• However, significant full-time personnel actions were still required to stabilize the financial health of the department. The actions taken on Tuesday are heartbreaking, but necessary to put Texas Athletics in a position for success moving forward. The full-time personnel action includes the following: beginning September 1, 2020, through August 31, 2021, 26 contracted coaches and administrators voluntarily agreed to take temporary salary reductions. Beginning October 16, 2020, through August 31, 2021, 273 staff members will receive temporary salary reductions, and 11 staff members will be temporarily furloughed with benefits. Temporary salary reductions are based on a marginal rate approach in the following manner: the first $50,000 of an employee’s salary will be reduced by 2.5%, the next $50,001 to $100,000 is reduced by 10% and any amount above $100,001 is reduced by 15%. Also, beginning September 1, 2020, 35 staff members will be laid off and 35 vacant positions will be permanently eliminated. Texas Athletics is also suspending the performance incentive program at this time. These actions amount to a $13.1 million savings for the department budget.

Can I use your calculator?

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