LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - Arkansas spends millions on education and today we're looking at where those dollars go.
Figures of how the state universities spend their athletic money were released last week from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. Today's THV decided to do a side-by-side look at both athletic and academic spending among the University of Arkansas- Fayetteville, Arkansas State University and the University of Central Arkansas.
Categories we calculated include teacher salaries, operating costs, research and scholarships. For Athletics, some of the categories include salaries, fringe benefits, travel and facilities.
We also delved into revenue brought in by the universities which includes tuition, fees for academics and ticket sales and media payouts for athletics.
The University of Arkansas-Fayetteville was the only out of the three that retained a balance in their athletic fund.
UAF finished the year with more than $500-thousand in the athletic fund. They spent $81 million on athletics; salaries made up nearly $19 million of the overall budget and more than $15 million went to facilities.
UAF Academics overall expenditures were more than $246 million; teacher salaries cost almost $86 million, operating costs came in at $33 million and the university spent $14 million in scholarships.
Now to ASU. Athletics spent the exact amount they brought in, $13 million. The biggest costs include $3 million in salaries and $3 million in athletic scholarships. In academic spending ASU dropped $115 million, but brought in $155 million. Their biggest costs include teacher salaries at nearly $28 million, next operating costs at $22 million. ASU actually gave more than $19 million in scholarships, nearly $5 million more than UAF.
Finally UCA spent exactly what they brought in from their athletics budget, $9.4 million. Their Biggest cost, just like ASU and UAF, was salaries at $2 million and athletic scholarships nearing $3 million.
UCA academics spent $101 million dollars and brought in almost $130 million. Their largest costs include teacher salaries at $32 million, operating costs at nearly $21 million and scholarships at $17 million.
In the category of Fringe Benefits, UAF spent almost $5 million dollars while ASU spent $890K and UCA spent $630K.
The Arkansas Department of Higher Education compiled those numbers and universities are required to report the figures.
According to state law, university athletic programs are not allowed to go into the red. If they do, they must increase student athletic fees to make up the difference.