I disagree strongly with the idea that the same amount of money should go to university sports
activities as to university libraries. Although playing sports is a wonderful way to learn about
teamwork, strategy and reaching your goals, it should not be the principal focus of a university
education.
Students need the most up-to-date library facilities available to get the best education. Many of
those facilities are very expensive to buy and maintain. These include computerized programs and
access to Internet research databases that students can use to find information all around the
world. If a university is only offering its students resources of a decade ago, it's depriving those
students of a tremendous amount of information.
Even the book and magazine budget of universities has gone up tremendously in the last decade.
More is being published on every subject, and every university wants to have this information
available to its students.
It also costs money for universities to keep their libraries open. Students need to have access to all
the libraries' research tools as much of the time as possible. Because students are young and can
stay up all night studying, many universities are starting to leave their libraries open all night
during exam periods. This costs money, because the staff has to be paid extra to be there. It also
costs money to run the building (electricity, heat) during that time.
Students at universities are only going to benefit from their education if they can get to all the
tools they need to learn. Sports are secondary to the resources that students need from university
libraries. For this reason, libraries should always be better funded than sports activities.