Colleges’ Athletics Arms Race Is for Losers

With the college football bowls under way, all most of us will care about are the winners. But as a nation purporting to care about the costs of higher education, we should pay far more attention to the many losers.

Thanks to a newly available database, we can grasp the ugly truth: Universities are increasing their spending on intercollegiate sports exponentially, far faster than they are investing resources in teaching and research, and at rates that force higher institutional subsidies, usually paid by students.