College Recruiting Budgets Are As Out of Control as Coaching
Salaries  Yet no one mentions how rapidly the cost of competing
for top talent is rising. Until, that is, the Chronicle of
Higher Education issued this report dated August 1. The key
finding is that almost half of colleges doubled or tripled the
amount of money they spent on recruiting in the last decade. In
a world where athletes demand attention, top flight facilities,
huge stadiums or arenas, and constant coddling from adults, it
sometimes gets overlooked how few schools can compete for top
players on a purely economic basis.  On the whole, the 65
biggest spenders shelled out a total of more than $61-million in
2007, an 86-percent increase from 10 years before. That amount
does not include salaries for recruiting coordinators or
construction and operating costs of the gleaming multimillion-
dollar facilities that help lure prospects.  Tennessee, Notre
Dame, Florida, Auburn and Kansas State rounded out the top five
biggest spenders. The graphs that