All Activity

Bonaventure is not in any financial danger and is in fact one of the better managed schools fiscally in the A10. Their small enrollment has been an advantage to them. Davidson is in a similar situation. LaSalle, Fordham, & Loyola are the most in trouble financially. LaSalle is by far the worst, but Fordham is catching up. Loyola's current struggles appear to be manageable. it is a dream scenario but getting LaSalle and Fordham to drop D-1 athletics isn't that far off. I don't think LaSalle makes it to 2030 & Fordham could cut out at any time.

Another A10 university who may have financial problems is St Bonaventure. The Bonnie’s have only a 92.3 Mil endowment fund, and only 2381 total students, so much less operating revenue coming in, harder to keep funding D1 sports. LaSalle, with 5191 students, gets a lot more revenue coming in on a yearly basis. No one else seems in immediate financial danger, next lowest endowments are URI and GMU at 203 Mil and 222 Mil respectively, but not only do they have 16k and 35k enrollments, they are both public schools, so as long as they get money from their state governments, they are good. Beyond that is St Joe’s, 7568 enrollment and 378 Mil endowment fund, doesn’t really seem to be in immediate trouble. While Davidson only has an enrollment of about 1843, they are sitting on a 1.3 Billion endowment fund. As a wildcard, any university may decide to kill sports or go down to D3 because it makes financial sense to them at any time. Not sure I see that in the immediate future, but if there’s no way to control costs, they may decide they have to.

It appears to me that however LaSalle manages to maintain its accreditation, they will have to let go D1 level sports and NILs. In other words I cannot see how LaSalle can maintain its membership in A10 and maintain its accreditation. There may be another opening for other schools in A10, coming soon.

Like comparing Harvard with SLU.

Latest figures I could find were from 2023, but here’s the comparison: SLU Endowment fund size - $1.731 Billion LaSalle University Endowment fund size - $71.7 Million Yeah, they might be in some trouble…

More evidence of the major issue facing universities across the US, shrinking enrollment.

LaSalle University’s accreditation is being threatened by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education due to shaky finances. The University must prepare a report for the Commission by February 16, 2026 outlining their financial sustainability. If they survive as a university, can they continue to support Division 1 sports? The A-10 may end up with one less member one way or another.

SLU Men’s Soccer is using the roster limit exemption opportunity. New roster limit is 28 for Women and Men. The Women are at 28. The Men are at 30 as they will use the exemption opportunity to keep 2 extra players to finish out their careers at SLU. Eventually SLU Men’s Soccer will get down to 28 annually. All 28 Men’s roster spots, and all 28 Women’s roster spots, can be full scholarships. SLU isn’t expected to fill all 28 scholarships at capacity. But SLU is expected to increase full scholarship amounts on both teams to remain competitive in the landscape. SLU added 3 transfers mid semester. They uniquely lost 1 of them after the Spring season. (Transferred to a Fall opponent which will be fun). And they added 2 Spring May transfers as well as an International player.

Looking at roster: 5 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 13 Freshman. Certainly will lean young overall but have to earn one’s time on the field. If a freshman can do that, more power to him. 24-ish years ago we had a crop of freshmen come through who started the season 10-0 led by Vedad. Regularly played seven freshmen that year too. Love to see impact like that from current crop of youngsters.

The major real cost to the University going forward, in terms of real money SLU must pay out, is going to be the revenue sharing part of the equation. While it appears we are roughly competitive this year in spending for Men’s basketball alone (who really knows after all, it’s just guessing since there’s no real numbers being given out), just how much will it rise next year? If this goes up at the same trajectory as the growth in NIL spending went in the past few years, this could get scary really quickly. And it’s not like SLU is driving the cost increases, they will have to respond to what the big schools are doing, just like NIL over the past few years.

I read your discourse, twice, and came to the conclusion that you know as much as I do....that is no idea what the accounting hit for athletic scholarships is to the Department. But they aren't free. It really doesn't matter how much they cost the Department, they do hit the bottom line of the Dept. Are you suggesting that adding scholarships beyond the two obvious programs is no big financial deal? I'm not sure why you think additional scholarships would be for additional students, students not already on SLU athletic teams. Those athletes, who could potentially receive a scholarship, are already enrolled. But that really doesn't matter. The point is after men's basketball's +2, their likely won't be any additional schollies this athletic year. Who is suggesting that a non-athlete student gets kicked out because an athlete gets a scholarship? That makes no sense. The Undergraduate Cost Of Attendance is listed on the SLU Website as $81,000. There are a lot of variables in that figure. This is not the cost to the university, it is the cost to the student. If you know that is wrong you should report that to the university. Yes, many students receive financial assistance and very few pay this full load. https://www.slu.edu/financial-aid/tuition-and-costs/cost-of-attendance.php Are each of the 15 men's and 15 women's hoop scholarships charged to the basketball program at $81,000? No. What the bottom line hit to the Dept is unknown. But there is a hit. Like it or not, Coach Schertz's basketball team will get the bulk of the Revenue Sharing bucket. Tillett reported today in Stu's article that she is getting some Revenue which helped in recruiting the transfer portal. In January, VCU reported that they will spend around $5million on Revenue Sharing. They didn't detail how it would be allocated. In March George Mason reported that their figure was $3million for Men's basketball. They mentioned no other sports nor additional scholarships.

Pat had his first four hit game Monday, he is up to an awesome 46 stolen bases and playing terrific defensive outfield

How much a scholarship costs a university is a murky and gray discussion. It all depends on what type of scholarship and what it covers. The cost of attendance is nothing. Books would cost SLU. Room & board would cost SLU. This would be something where SLU is losing the actual cost of what a non-athlete student would pay for that room If the athletes being provided a meal plan, that would cost SLU in some way. Not necessarily 100% of that value, however. Anything involving limited resources I don’t have the time to get more specific, there are some direct costs to the university.

Depends on how you do the accounting for the student athletes. For just scholarships, the cost is minimal. If you are kicking out a student paying full price to accommodate a student-athlete, then yes, it actually did cost SLU $50,000 in real money. Were there any paying students refused entry to SLU last year because of athletic scholarships? No. Did not happen. The other way to look at it is to say how much does it actually cost SLU in real dollar terms. Looking at the dashboard from SLU https://www.slu.edu/provost/office-of-institutional-research/institutional-data/student-enrollment.php. Last fall there were 15,334 total students, 8669 undergrad and 6665 graduate students. If enrollment increased by 219.4 students, then how much does it really cost SLU? Maybe a professor or 2, maybe a handful of TA’s. This does not cost the university $11 million. Most classes have room for an additional student or two after all. Maybe some other increased incidental expenses. But it does not cost the university $11 million additional dollars to educate 220 more students. Another proof of this is that enrollment was up 130 students from the year before last. Did SLU go on a multi-million dollar hiring spree (they would have needed to spend $5 million more to cover the 130 additional students after all!)? No, there were layoffs, and the education of students went on. The real issue this year is how much SLU will have to spend to pay for athletes. Using the example you gave above for IU, $20.5 mil cap, -75% for football, (which SLU does not have) leaves $5.125 Mil to match IU in spending total for athletes not on the football team. To keep the same proportions of IU’s spending across all other sports, we get $4.1 million for men’s basketball, and $1.025 million spread out among all other student athletes. Spend that much and we match IU dollar for dollar among non-football student athletes.

I have the same information you do...nothing. I would not expect SLU to boast many, if any, scholarships with the exception of men's basketball. Additional scholarships come at a cost to the Athletic Department. I did the math and SLU could add an additional 219.4 schollies and be at the new Roster Limits. I"m not sure about the financial value of each scholarship, but the SLU website lists $50K+ as tuition cost. Just use that as a round number, fully funding all sports would cost $11M. And even though some posters think money grows on trees, there is no reason to assume that type of money is available. P4 schools have the dilemma of whether to fund additional scholarships or give more money to athletes. The House P4 Rowing team or your Tennis teams, or do you pay your football and basketball teams (revenue generators) more money? IU AD Scott Dolson went public saying that IU will not be adding scholarships, because they don't want to dilute the $20.5M cap. [Interesting numbers Dolson gave, Football will receive 70 to 75% of the Revenue Share, men's basketball 20%, women's basketball and volleyball will get the next share of the pie, with the remainder sprinkled over the other 20 sports.] Of course SLU doesn't have to worry about the $20.5m cap, but this gives you a glimpse as to what is happening across the landscape. For SLU it is pay your basketball players or give that money to other non-revenue sports through scholarships. I for one would like to see the two soccer teams get a little boost, but time will tell if that happens. What happens this athletic season most likely will change for the subsequent seasons.

I agree about the Beast. But that seems like a pipe dream at this point. If the opportunity to get in really exists then we should pull out all the stops to be an invitee. Our history has always been as a member of a major BB conference until the A10 got depleted when X and Butler bolted. But if big time BB goes the FB route I’m not so sure even the Beast will be a major conf. I was just being realistic. Again, the Beast is our lifeline but it hasn’t been tossed.

I. was big lover of all u can eat Chinese buffets that were everywhere 80s & 90s. One of the craziest was place in Chesterfield with big flames out in front entrance. they had a red panda wannabe that would perform around the dining rooms.

Were those Zooperstars??

My favorite

What about those creepy weird mascot looking things that do races and then eat the cheerleaders?

If that is what the donors want and what they are willing to fund, where do you think the money required to move forward will come from?

I am OOO next week.

Outside of Basketball, I don't know how much SLU will change. Soccer I could see them stepping up on both sides. But I don't think they'll have any interest in adding for other sports. Hendo was quoted by Stu as saying he think SLU will stay at the current number for Basbeball.

I have not heard that information, I would love to know it, but I don’t think the AD will release that info