Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Rutgers University bookstore manager Wayne Beach has no doubt that the success of the school football team is helping business.

``I could put `Rutgers' on a box of Kleenex and sell it for $5 right now,'' he said recently as the Scarlet Knights headed for their best season since 1869, when they beat Princeton in the first U.S. college football game. Rutgers finished regular competition with 10 wins and two losses, and tonight plays Kansas State in the Texas Bowl in Houston.

New Jersey's state university may be hard-pressed to notice the financial boost from football that Beach does. Following a $47 million cut in state aid for operations, the 51,000-student school, with its main campus in New Brunswick, has fired instructors, raised tuition and dropped intercollegiate sports such as swimming and tennis. Rutgers will net about $2 million from the bowl appearance.

``We're dying,'' said English professor William C. Dowling, a leader of Rutgers 1000, a 1990s effort by faculty and alumni, including the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, to get Rutgers to abandon major sports including football. ``Classes are canceled, class size is swelling, litter is swirling in the streets around campus.''

Some of the $13 million Rutgers spends on intercollegiate sports each year would be better used to blunt the impact of the cut in state aid, Dowling said. The 13 percent reduction trimmed the state's basic operational aid to $309 million, forcing officials to pare costs in Rutgers's $1.6 billion budget for the fiscal year ending June 30.

Donations, Admissions

While donations and admissions applications are up, Rutgers officials don't specifically credit the football team's prominence. As of Nov. 29, The Rutgers Foundation received pledges of $3.7 million from 15,528 donors to its annual alumni fund-raiser, a 10 percent rise in pledges and a 22 percent increase in donors.

``It's possible people who give each year and require four phone calls from us are now just giving earlier,'' said Carol Herring, president of the foundation. It raised $7.5 million last fiscal year.

Applications for admission by first-year and transfer students for the fall 2007 semester were up 5.9 percent from the same period a year earlier. Applications rose less than 2 percent in 2003 and 2005, and fell 6.5 percent in 2004.

``The impact of a successful football program might be cumulative and not as apparent the first year,'' said Julie Barad, associate director of undergraduate admissions.

Programs Cut

The impact of the state funding cut isn't debatable, Rutgers officials say. The university eliminated 459 courses for the fall semester just ended, and said similar cancellations probably will occur for the spring semester.

Rutgers dismissed 189 employees, eliminated 374 part-time lecture positions, and left 229 vacant staff positions unfilled, according to the university's Web site. It raised tuition 8 percent for in-state undergraduates to $7,923 and dropped rowing, fencing and diving as well as swimming and tennis as intercollegiate sports.

Whether football would help donations or enrollment was a moot point at Rutgers until recently. The squad lost 25 straight Big East Conference games from 1999-2003. Last year, the team finished 7-5 and played in its first postseason bowl game since 1978. This year the Scarlet Knights were ranked as high as No. 7 in media polls, and today's game marks the first back-to-back bowl appearances in the school's history.

All eight Big East members will receive about a $2 million share of the conference's overall bowl revenue. Rutgers also will get $1.3 million to cover expenses for its appearance.

`Exciting Time'

At the Rutgers athletics office, fund-raising director Jason Kroll has no problem tying increased giving to the football team. Season-ticket sales rose 29 percent to 11,600 after last season's bowl appearance, he said.

Rutgers has attracted more than 8,000 new season-ticket holders since sales began last month for the 2007 schedule, said Jason Baum, the team's spokesman.

``It's an incredibly exciting time,'' said Kroll. ``We are having more conversations with people about more large transactions than ever before.'' He said the school may raise $7 million in donations for sports this year, up from his earlier projection of $6 million.

Even with the increase in sports giving, university President Richard L. McCormick said he doesn't foresee the sports program being able to pay for itself soon.

``We're not in this for the money,'' said McCormick, 60. ``The university significantly subsidizes its programs in intercollegiate athletics, including football, and it will continue to do so.''

The football team's prowess may also bring intangible benefits, said Carl Kirschner, dean of Rutgers College, the university's original undergraduate school and the largest on the New Brunswick campus.

``We see football as an opening to talk about Rutgers's academic excellence,'' he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: James O'Neill in New York at joneill6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 28, 2006 00:09 EST