Editorial from News and Record

I found this editorial piece in the News and Record.  I thought this might mean a few schools will have to do a better job of recruiting in state athletes. 

Editorial: Crass and Indefensible

The new state budget signed last week by Gov. Bev. Perdue finally benched a wasteful policy that never should have been: in-state tuition rates for out-of-state athletes.

Here's how it worked: You, the taxpayer, ...
paid the difference in what it costs an out-of-state student to attend a school versus an in-state athlete.
That would have amounted this year to a total of $9.4 million for all UNC system schools and would have saved money, at taxpayer expense, for such well-heeled booster groups as the Wolfpack Club at N.C. State and the Rams Club at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The provision also subsidized scholarships for smaller athletics programs at UNCG ($439,000 for 39 athletes) and N.C. A&T ($94,000 for 10 athletes).
But the bulk of it would have gone to the bigger operations at State ($1.9 million for 153 athletes) and Carolina ($2.4 million for 159 athletes), which also, ironically, are best able to thrive without taxpayer help. (Up-and-comer Appalachian State merits honorable mention since it would have netted $1.1 million this fiscal year for 115 athletes.)
Despite the obvious inappropriateness of it all, Senate lawmakers fended off attempts by state House lawmakers to strip the provision last year and kept the shameful subsidies intact.
This year, with the state facing a budget crisis and a still-woozy economy, the subsidies thankfully bit the dust, no doubt to the chagrin of a few pompom-waving legislators.
Let them write personal checks to their alma maters.
For A&T and UNCG, the elimination of taxpayer aid mean finding that money elsewhere in tight budgets. Schools also will be forced in the future to recruit more in-state talent.
"It's going to be a struggle," Appalachian State Athletics Director Charlie Cobb told the News & Record's Gerald Witt, "there's no question about it."He'll manage. And so will everyone else.
We all want our favorite teams to be winners. But at what cost?
This was a crass and indefensible gambit from the start.