J. Byron Fleck: Pitt’s $246 million bet against its students, employees

By July 1, the University of Pittsburgh will have made a choice: fund up to a quarter-billion-dollar commitment to pay its professional football and men’s basketball players — or protect its students, families and employees from financial ruin. The money? $246 million over 10 years, taken directly from student tuition, fees and Pennsylvania taxpayers.

The human cost is staggering. 11,400 Pitt students already graduate with crushing debt — $40,000 on average in federal loans alone. Private debt piles higher.

Black students face a special crisis: Their families hold 30% more debt than white families, default at 5 times the rate and still owe 95% of their loans two decades after graduation.

28,000 Pitt employees brace for layoffs after $183 million in National Institutes of Health cuts. Now their jobs will be eliminated to fund professional athlete salaries.

Some Olympic sports face extinction. Coaches and athletes in every non-revenue program wait for the axe to fall.

This isn’t opinion, it’s accounting. Pitt Athletics has bled $238 million in net losses since 2019, funded entirely, 100%, through transfers from student tuition, fees and your taxes. Even after TV deals, ticket sales, surcharges, donations and revenue from all sources, deficits average $40 million yearly.

Starting July 1? Annual net losses of $40 million likely balloon to $75 million, an 88% spike. Adding to annual deficits of $40 million are, new this fiscal year beginning July 1, $20.5 million player pay, regular salary increases/severance payments, increased travel, likely commencement of amortization of Victory Heights project bonds and deductions from revenue arising from payment of damages in House v. NCAA and performance benchmarks. Without intervention, students, their families and taxpayers pay 100% of the skyrocketing deficits.

With but days remaining Pitt has not announced a plan to fund the court-blessed House v. NCAA settlement — which pays players for their labor. By default, given Pitt’s questionable practice of funding annual athletics deficits in the tens of millions each year solely from tuition fees and taxes, the singular conclusion must be the practice will expand to pay professional athletes $20.5 million for each of the next 10 years with 4% per annum compound interest, by siphoning education dollars and increasing student/family debt.

The court has spoken. Athletes shall be paid. The outrage is who Pitt forces to foot the bill:

• Students/families drowning in debt

• Employees fearing pink slips

• Olympic athletes losing their teams

There is an alternative. Since March 11, Chancellor Joan Gabel and the board of trustees secretary have been in receipt of a resolution banning tuition, fees or state funds from athlete pay. State Sen. Jay Costa, a Pitt trustee, forwarded it to trustees, Gabel and Chief Legal Counsel Geovette Washington. It is direct and makes it abundantly clear that no subterfuge of intent will be tolerated. It decrees: “No part of any student’s tuition, student fees nor appropriations from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, shall, directly or indirectly, be used for player pay (“revenue sharing”), as contemplated by the settlement in the matter of House v. NCAA.”

Passing the resolution:

1. Shields students and their families from tuition being diverted or hiked to fund professional player pay.

2. Protects jobs and Olympic sports.

3. Forces the Athletic Department to refresh fundraising and especially creative revenue generation to fund player pay (without exploiting students) as many of Pitt’s peer athletic programs have since early 2025.

To withhold this vote is unconscionable. It knowingly sacrifices Pittsburghers — students, staff and families — to subsidize professional entertainment.

Before July 1, Pitt’s leadership must choose: Protect the community it serves, or knowingly throw it into financial and emotional distress to pay professional football and men’s basketball players whose connection to the university may be little beyond a paycheck and blue and gold jerseys.

Attorney J. Byron Fleck earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Pittsburgh and is a former Chancellor’s Fellow, Alumni Volunteer of the Year and donor to Pitt academics and athletics. He authored the resolution presented to the trustees.