In order to fund a $70.5 million budget, the Rutgers athletics department was subsidized $23.8 million for the fiscal year 2015, according to the university's financial report filed to the NCAA.

It marks a 34.5 percent decrease from the $36.3 million that Rutgers received in university, student-fee and government support in 2014. It also marks a 49.3 percent decrease from the record-high $46.9 million in subsidies that Rutgers athletics drew in 2013.

The report, obtained by NJ Advance Media on Tuesday, reflects Rutgers' first full year of membership in the Big Ten Conference (July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015).

The report shows that Rutgers received a $9.4 million check from the Big Ten for its first year of membership, a total that is three times less than what full-Big Ten members receives but an amount that is greater than the athletics program received in its final year in the Big East.

In addition to receiving $10.8 million in student fees, the Rutgers athletics department received $12.9 million from the university's general fund and $13,184 in direct government support.

While the student-fee total increased by approximately $500,000 from last year, the direct institutional support decreased 50.2 percent from the $26 million total in 2014.

"I think what it does is it confirms what folks here have been saying for a while and that is the trend is going to continue,'' Rutgers Athletics Director Pat Hobbs said. "You are going to see the institutional support decline as we move toward full participation in the Big Ten. Certainly this year was evidence of it. It was hard to see in the last two years because you had special items, particularly the exit fee with the Big East which is the biggest piece of that."

Rutgers officials attributed the decrease to the buyout money used to escape from the Big East/American Athletic Conference finally being off the athletics ledger in fiscal year 2015.

"The direct university support number went down just about $13 million,'' Rutgers athletics Chief Financial Officer Janine Purcaro said. "$6.5 million of that is directly attributable to the accrual for the last piece of the (Big East/American Athletic Conference) exit fee. $5 million was paid two years previous. We made the accrual for the additional $6.5 million. It's being paid at $1.65 million over five years. Each Sept. 1 we owe them a check for years. It was on our books (in 2014) as one-time expense.''

The Rutgers operating budget for athletics in Year 1 of the Big Ten was $70,558,935, which is 2 percent of the university's $3.4 billion total operating budget in FY 2015.

Notable expenditures in 2015 include:

$11.3 million in student scholarship aid;

$10.9 million in coaching salaries;

$9.1 million paid to athletics support staff and administrators;

$5.7 million in team travel;

$5.4 million in facilities debt service, leases and rental fees, a line item which takes in account the nearly $4.9 million that Rutgers paid for the High Point Solutions Stadium expansion debt. In 2009, Rutgers spent $102 million to upgrade its stadium and has $88 million in outstanding debt, according to the FY2015 report.

Notable revenues include:

$13.8 million in department-wide ticket sales, which is a $3.4 million increase from 2014. The football team raked in $11.6 million in ticket sales, which is a $2.9 million spike from the final year in the American Athletic Conference.

$8.8 million in contributions, an increase of approximately $700,000 from last year. That line item in the fiscal report only shows the amount of fundraising dollars Rutgers spent, and is not reflective of the overall amount in private money raised for athletics during the 2014-15 season. According to Purcaro, Rutgers raised $14.7 million in cash gifts and pledges in fiscal year 2015, which was an 18 percent increase over the previous year.

$6.3 million in licensing, a total that reflects the IMG marketing deal inked in 2014.

"It was really the impact of ticket sales across the board in all of our sports, wrestling had tremendous growth increase, football obviously was the biggest,'' Purcaro said.

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.