The net cash flow from fiscal year 2002 tuition was calculated from student records. The major difference between our calculations and the numbers obtained from the Director of Budgeting is that we do not treat the outside (e.g., federal) financial aid students receive as a reduction of the net tuition revenue received by the university. While these moneys are financial aid, the cost is born by the sponsoring bodies (e.g., the federal government) and do not reduce the funds received for tuition by the university.

The assumed student attrition rate is an estimate based on the team members' self-reported assessments of the likelihood that they would not have come to MTU had there been no tennis team. Our estimated attrition rate has been judgmentally reduced below the one indicated by the students' self-reports (over 80%) to allow for self-reporting bias. However, our conclusions are unlikely to be affected by any reasonable assumption about the attrition rate. For example, assuming a 50% attrition rate increases the cost savings to $51,660, an approximate $10,000 increase in savings.

The team costs and coach's salary are from the Athletic Director's fiscal year 2002 budget and past experience. They do not differ significantly from the administration's numbers in our judgment.

These savings should be realizable beginning in fiscal year 2003.

Hidden Costs
We have not included in our quantitative analysis any allowance for educational costs or state appropriations attributable to the tennis team members. It is our judgment that neither of these factors will be affected in total in the short run by elimination of the tennis team. We do believe that both total education costs and state appropriations will be affected in the long run by the elimination of the tennis teams, but estimation of the effects would be speculative with respect to both time and amount.

Conclusion
It is our judgment that the projected savings from elimination of the tennis team do not in and of themselves provide significant motivation for elimination of the team. It is our belief that non-financial factors such as (1) the quality of the students that are attracted by having tennis teams (2) the contribution of the tennis teams to the quality of student life, and (3) the effect of having the teams on external awareness of the university are more important to this decision.