To the editor:

We read with disbelief that Kansas Athletics, Inc. (KAI) plans to spend $300 million on stadium renovations at KU. Three hundred million dollars is a LOT of money:

Given that all professors and instructors at KU have taken a 9 percent cut in real salary since 2009, this much money could bring their pay up to even with inflation for more than two years. Three hundred million dollars represents a 10 percent reduction in student tuition for a decade. It could pay for “adequate security measures” to keep guns off the entire campus more than three times over. To waste such money on skyboxes, blinking lights and four-star food service in a building that is used perhaps 20 days a year for purposes that have nothing to do with either education or scholarship is just a slap in the face to cash-strapped students, faculty, staff and the parents who struggle to pay KU’s ever-rising tuition bills.

KAI asserts that it is “independent” and gets no support from KU; in reality, KU heavily subsidizes its operations. Somehow, KAI gets half of all the revenues generated by the Jayhawk and KU trademarks, in spite of having nothing to do with their creation. They pay not a dime in rent for the facilities they’re in or ground they’re on, suck up millions from “school funds” and support only a handful of students, not with real “scholarships,” but with “athleticships.” Here’s hoping that incoming Chancellor Doug Girod will put a stop to these shenanigans, renegotiate the back-room deals that make this hideous waste possible and use the $300 million to truly help KU’s students, faculty, staff and parents.