For the better part of a decade, University of Oregon officials have touted the athletic department's economic self-sufficiency, a rarity in the world of big-time college sports. But for at least nine years, athletics has used hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from the university's general fund to cover the cost of academic support for athletes, according to files obtained by The Oregonian.



The general fund has paid nearly $8.5 million over the past nine years for academic support for athletes, which includes exclusive tutoring and counseling, increasing sixfold from less than $300,000 in 2002-03 to a budgeted $1.8 million this academic year.



Meanwhile tuition has nearly doubled and state support has plummeted to 7 percent of the university's overall budget. Use of the general fund to academically support athletes means that other students essentially are subsidizing those services. The squeeze has come as athletics spending has skyrocketed, up 65 percent in the past four years alone, fueled by ticket sales and related donations.



Jim Bean, Oregon's senior vice president and provost, who also oversees academic support for athletes, said it is appropriate for the university to pay for academic support for athletes, and honest for the school to maintain that athletics is self-sufficient despite that support.





"I actually insist that that be funded from the academic side to make sure that we have the right academic control," said Bean, who oversees academic support for athletes.

Bean said that because a large majority of Oregon athletes come from out of state, the athletic department pays more tuition for them on average than the average non-athlete student pays, effectively offsetting the cost of athletes' academic support.

But that is not how two other prominent athletic departments who claim self-sufficiency operate. The University of Michigan and the University of Kentucky pay out-of-state tuition for out-of-state athletes, spokesmen said. This year they will use athletic funds to pay $1.5 million and $1.8 million, respectively, for academic support for athletes, with heads of those support programs reporting jointly to an academic leader and to the school's athletic director.

The athletic department at Kentucky, where Rob Mullens worked before taking over as Oregon athletic director this summer, also donates about $1.7 million annually to the school's academic side.

That arrangement is rare; according to the NCAA, only 14 of 120 athletic departments in the NCAA's top division generated a profit in 2008-09, the most recent data available. On average, athletic departments in that division each received a $10 million subsidy from their university.

Oregon State athletics receives about $4 million of its $54 million annual budget from the university general fund, and the academic side pays for its $636,000 academic-support program for athletes, a spokesman said. Oregon athletics' $1.8 million general-fund payment for athletes' academic support is part of a budget of $75 million.

But unlike Oregon State, the Ducks have pronounced themselves economically independent of the university's academic side.

Then-athletic director Pat Kilkenny wrote in a July 2007 editorial in Eugene's Register-Guard newspaper, "We receive no funding from the state or the university general funds." On the Ducks' athletic site, the page introducing the Duck Athletic Fund says, "the University of Oregon Athletic Department is financially self-sufficient and does not receive any support from state funds."

Along with tuition, state money feeds the university's general fund, which pays for athletes' academic support.

The claim came into being in 2002-03, when UO athletics stopped accepting a $2 million annual university subsidy for athletics operations. It has been repeated as critics questioned the Ducks' sharp increases in athletic spending or boosters' splurges on buildings and billboards.

Oregon's academic-support budget for athletes jumped about $500,000 in 2009-10, as Oregon opened a $30 million academic center for athletes -- nearly $42 million including furnishings and other costs, according to university files -- funded by Nike co-founder Phil Knight.

As part of the gift, Knight outlined various technology and staffing requirements for the center, including the addition of 16 employees, according to a written agreement between Knight and the UO. Knight did not specify in the agreement which department should pay for the additions. In addition to staffing, the building will cost a projected $480,000 annually to operate, of which the general fund will pay $160,000 because about one-third of the building is open to general university use.

The athletic department's rise in ticket sales and donations for priority seating have paralleled the rise of the Ducks football team, which reached the Rose Bowl last season and is currently ranked No. 3 in the nation.

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