What's More Important, America: College Football or College Education?

College football has always been a national pastime in America. Walk into any home broadcasting Penn State vs. Iowa or Notre Dame vs. Ohio State and you can quickly mistake the flair and exuberant cheers for any interdivisional pro matchup. Steelers-Browns, for example.

But NCAA football has been slowly creeping up the ladder in exposure over the past two decades, at the expense of education.

As coaching salaries increase, tuition rises for students, and state appropriations continue to fall, individual education budgets shrink, leaving us with a cloudy view of what’s really happening around the nation every time we flip on College GameDay.

There was time where a Saturday afternoon afforded viewers two or three games on television, but nowadays, Saturday comes complete with game after game after game starting at around noon and ending sometime around 10 p.m. on a multitude of channels—CBS, ESPN, and NBC leading the way.

The marketing world does a very good job at keeping college football right in front of us as well, inundating us with commercial after commercial highlighting “conference games,” way more than traditional commercials speaking about the institution itself.

By my count this Saturday, there was a 4-to-1 ratio in favor of commercials highlighting next week’s games rather than highlighting the institutions and what they have to offer students.

But, it doesn’t stop there.

Even the entertainment industry has gotten into the act with movies about college sports, college players, and college sports “history.” In fact, with national branding crammed down our pie-holes, there is more of a surrounding existence of college sports than the almighty NFL.

The latest concern in college sports is the alarming increase in coaches' salaries and insane planned usage of funds in an incredibly tough economic time.

But, it’s not just about the comparison of the health of our market and coaches' salaries. Rather, it's the effect it has on education.

Unbeknownst to most, as more and more coaches see double-digit increases in their salaries—salaries that are higher than that of the man running this country—most educational institutes are seeing tuition rises, cuts in funding, class cuts, and an overall decline in university quality.

Students pay while coaches get paid.

Pete Carroll, of Southern Cal, earns around $4.4 million and is one of three coaches with salaries that are worthy of the pregnancy ward.

And it’s students that take it on the chin.

USC has increased its tuition by 32 percent as well as cut classes, in addition to the $31-plus million in debt the athletic department simply looked away from in 2007 that has yet to be paid.

The University of California is paying Jeff Tedford $2.8 million in addition to another $430 million renovation project for its stadium, despite state appropriations and overall funding for education shrinking.

But Arizona is the worst of them all.

Arizona’s $378 million spending effort to upgrade sporting facilities in every major sport over the next 20 years is the most idiotic news I have heard from any state in this country to date—see what happens when education get’s cast aside?

This is from the same state who just recently claimed it was going broke.

Despite the announcement, and the exaggerated salary of Mike Stoops at $1.3 million, the state is one of 34 who have cut spending to public colleges and universities. Arizona State has cut almost 600 staff positions; can you guess where that touted $378 million is coming from now?

But within all of this will undoubtedly come along the faithful individual brandishing his flag of defense for his alma mater; one who will step up to the plate and say ”Hey, this is biased, don’t you know how much revenue these athletic departments bring into these schools?”

Really, the same schools that have cut massive jobs? The same schools that have lost funding, have to deal with furloughs, and otherwise have seen their education budget dwindle while a football coach gets an average salary increase of 20 percent? The same schools that have raised tuition on their students? The same schools that pay their professors—you know, the loyal men and women who are trained to provide students with a proper education—one-third of a football coach’s wages? Even an assistant coach makes more than a teacher.

And I’m the one who’s biased?

To me, the magical revenue that schools “bring in” from their athletic departments is a farce and a delusion, and a cute little scapegoat to afford them the back door slip out of this argument.

If we really wanted to delve into this—which I will save for a later day—it is a lot easier than one thinks to see how this all works with major television stations having huge stakes in college sports, the pro circuit basically creating and harboring this monster, and the private organizations that benefit from making kids into prima donna media icons before they even finish school.

President Obama earlier this year came out and stated his emphasis on getting America back into education, but he offered no explanation or insight into increased athletic spending while funding for schools and education get worse.

The truth is there is very little emphasis on education anymore, with sports being one of the problems that interfere. I love sports—I really do; I love education more.

There is no denying how deep college sports run in this country, but when students and education start to take a hit because the shift in emphasis is unbalanced, someone, somewhere, has to step up and provide some balance.

There really isn’t any escape away from the truth that money and entertainment has begun to take control over education, and it’s a very slow and almost undetectable process.

The next time you and your buddies sit down for a game featuring a college you never attended, remember that more than likely that school, and the majority of its student body, is suffering financially—something you’ll rarely ever hear about. But they’ll make sure to keep you abreast on the draft position of their quarterback.

Remember that there are students who can barely afford their tuition now and have just learned of the increase in cost to get an education, yet it’s OK that their almighty football coach makes millions of dollars each year.

Hey coach, how about kicking back some funds to the schools that are the victim of a financial stranglehold thanks to a failing economy, the same school that produces the droves of students that support you and your team every Saturday while their educational future remains in a perpetual state of severe jeopardy?

An idealistic wish, I admit.

Say what you will about this rant, but it’s Education vs. Entertainment, and education is losing, and very few seem to care...don’t be one of those people.

Here is another excellent take on this subject by Bleacher Report Analyst Michael Collins.