news-record.com

Don't tell Carolina boosters times are tight.

Tar Heel fans haven't let a little thing like a recession get in the way of a $70 million expansion for UNC-Chapel Hill's home football field, Kenan Stadium.

Thus far, there have been 15 takers for luxury suites that cost $50,000 a pop for one season. Act now, while supplies last. Only five are left.

But there's more: The stadium already has sold out 224 cushy loge boxes for $2,500 each.

Then there are the discount "concourse club" seats for only $750 apiece.

At least it's all private cash, given by choice.

Not so in the case of the $9.4 million in taxpayer money earmarked in the proposed state Senate budget to subsidize scholarships for out-of-state athletes, including nearly $2.5 million that would go to Carolina.

Blame it on a law tucked into the budget five years ago that allows the booster clubs that fund the scholarships, including the Rams Club at Carolina and the Wolfpack Club at N.C. State, to only pay the in-state rate. Taxpayers cover the difference.

If approved by lawmakers, this year's budgeted total would eclipse the current fiscal year's price tag of $8.5 million.

Among other notable spenders on the list beside the Tar Heels: N.C. State ($1.873 million), Appalachian State ($1.1 million) and East Carolina ($841,000). Each involves an increase over current spending.

N.C. A&T and UNCG also made the list, at a relatively modest $94,000 and $439,000, respectively, the same figures as this year.

Overall, the number of athletes affected on UNC campuses would jump from 747 to 817. The money somehow managed to survive in the Senate's budget even as lawmakers were scrambling to keep public school teachers employed. And even as the House budget recommends UNC budget cuts totaling $175 million.

That could mean job losses reaching as many as 1,700 across the university system, as well as the elimination of more classes.

The House is expected to remove the athletics subsidies in its version of the budget, but whether the Senate agrees to go along with that change in the final budget remains to be seen. It didn't last year.

How that can be defies good judgment and common sense. Based on the recent doings at Kenan Stadium, boosters still appear well-equipped to pay their own freight. Let them cover the full cost of these scholarships.

This is a practice that needs to stop and that never should have begun in the first place.