A few years ago, in an effort to relieve the financial pressure, Rutgers accepted an invitation to join the Big Ten, perhaps the wealthiest conference in the country. With football powers like Ohio State and Michigan, the Big Ten not only has lucrative deals with ABC and ESPN, it also has its own TV network. Thanks to those TV deals, last year the Big Ten paid out some $27 million to its 11 qualifying universities.

Yet even with the Big Ten’s money (and to be fair, as a new member, Rutgers won’t reap the full rewards for six years), the Rutgers athletic department is projecting deficits at least through the 2021-22. Indeed, according to figures compiled by a faculty committee, Rutgers athletics is projecting a total deficit of $183 million between now and 2022.

You can see, of course, why this would infuriate faculty members — or, for that matter, anyone who cares about academics. Like most state schools, Rutgers has seen its state financing shrink drastically over the last decade, while tuition and fees have been going up. Academic departments have had multiple rounds of belt-tightening. “At the school of arts and sciences,” said Mark Killingsworth, a Rutgers economics professor who has been a leading voice against the athletic department’s costs, “we have been told that we can hire one person for every two who leave.” The library, he noted, recently had its budget cut by more than $500,000. Meanwhile, Kyle Flood, the football coach, is getting a $200,000 raise next year, taking his salary to $1.25 million.

In late March, the Rutgers university senate approved, by a wide margin, a report written by its Budget and Finance Committee that called on the athletic department to eliminate its losses within five years; to end the use of student fees to cover the athletic budget; and to treat the use of discretionary funds as loans.

Almost immediately afterward, a powerful Rutgers alumnus, State Senator Raymond Lesniak, commissioned a study aimed at showing that Rutgers needed to invest more in athletics, not less. Why? One reason is the supposed economic benefits that come with a successful sports program. Another rationale is that now that Rutgers is in the Big Ten, it will have to step up its game to compete — which, of course, would require lavish facilities, just like those at Ohio State and Michigan.