The High Costs of Recruiting

We all know recruiting high school stars to come to U of M or any school is a costly endeavour. These trips are important, coaches need to be able to go into a young man or woman's home or school and sit down with them to see if they are interested in attending the University of Michigan. Some programs have private planes and I'm sure some travel mostly by car. But what are the cost's associated with recruiting and how much budget does a major University need to cover these trips? Gas is expensive these days.

Well, a new report released by the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that athletic programs are paying big dollars to recruit these kids. You might be surprised on who spends the most:

• Tennessee was the highest in the study with just over $2 Million spent on Recruiting. No other school hit the $2M mark.
• Notre Dame was second with $1.76M (Since 1996-97, Notre Dame has increased its spending on recruiting 161 percent. Only only Kansas State University, Duke University and West Virginia University increased their recruiting budget at a steeper pace)
• Florida spends $1.45 and was 3rd in spending
• Michigan State spent $1.01 M ranked 17th out of 116 schools
• Michigan spent $1.0 M Ranked 21 out of 116
• Indiana University spent $905,300 to rank 33rd
• Purdue University spent $730,500 to rank 53rd
• Eastern Michigan spent $611,412 to rank 64th
• Central Michigan spent $416,874 to rank 89th
• Ball State spent $290,500 to rank 104th
• Western Michigan spent $235,556 to rank 111th

If I'm an AD and I'm spending over a million dollars on recruiting expenses, I would hope to have a highly ranked recruiting class. Not sure MSU reached that goal last year.