text: "They believe the school stands to lose as much it gains by slashing the estimated $1 million a year it costs to field teams at UAA ($600,000 for alpine and Nordic squads) and UAF ($400,000 for a Nordic squad)".
  
  Athletics supporters keep telling me how smart these kids on sports scholarships are and how lucky we are to have them in the community. So let's continue down that path of drawing smart kids into our communities. A million dollars in savings from eliminating these sports programs could provide a ton of ACADEMIC scholarships. Academic scholarships for ALASKAN kids.
  
  Gotta tell you, I got pretty damn tired of being forced to pay for sports programs via mandatory fees every quarter. Sports programs that did nothing for me but drove up the price of my education. You want sports at the university? I got no problem with that as long as they're self-sustaining. If not, they have to go.