And UTSA officials want students to pay most of the bill.
For years the UT system has seen the San Antonio campus as the one with the most room for growth, in terms of students and space. The desire is to take UTSA from a commuter school to a UTSA 4-year destination community. UTSA has over 28,000 students on three campuses. The main campus, located off of loop 1604 is on 725 acres.
Last year students voted to double the athletics fee from $240 to $480 a year. Officials plan to have a football team in place for play in 2011 at the FCS level, and then move to D-1 in 2016. They propose to play in the Alamodome. Officials are kicking off a $100 million general capital campaign and hope a football team will motivate alumni to increase donations across the board. The proposed athletics budget for the school would reach $19 million by 2016.
During the 2007-08 school year, UT spent over $20 million on football and realized almost $73 million in revenue from the sport.