Also, thanks to the budget cuts many departments are having to justify their graduate programs right now. Michigan State University will likely be eliminating graduate programs. No new generation of professors. This will also tank the rankings of those departments, and of the university.

And that's the thing that gets me: the university can exist without an Athletics Department. Professors and students are the two most essential parts of the university. The Athletics Department needs a university in order to even exist.
Yet, administrators behave as if the opposite is true.

That the Athletics Department demands so much energy from the administration, Board of Trustees, Alumni, and the Media, shows that Athletics is the main priority of Michigan State and and not Education (THE REASON A UNIVERSITY EXISTS IN THE FIRST PLACE).

The Athletics Department has been bleeding money for 5-6 years. The department is also allegedly in debt for over $100 million. Losing tens of millions of dollars every year for an outrageous Branding Exercise is a waste of resources.

Students can get an excellent education at Michigan State. That's because of the work of the professors and researchers there. The administration is sometimes hostile to them and their vocation. Otherwise, people like Larry Nasar and his boss William Strampel would not have thrived as predators.

The "leadership" can find wealthy donors to pony up for fat contracts for the likes of Mel Tucker and now Pat Fitzgerald, and NIL funds for athletes, but nothing for the actual business of the university: education.

You would think the leadership would be angry at the government for reneging on that much money. For perspective, the state of Michigan appropriated $333 million for the 2025-2026 to Michigan State's fiscal education budget.
msu.edu/state-transp...