DATCU Stadium

Texas

The students of North Texas voted to tax themselves about eight hundred forty dollars each to pay for this football stadium.

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In 2008 the University of North Texas asked its own students to fund a new football stadium out of their tuition bills. The fee worked out to seven dollars more per credit hour, roughly eight hundred forty dollars per student over four years. State law said students could not cover more than half the cost of a stadium. The athletic department campaigned hard for it, and supporters floated hiring street preachers and troubadours to drum up votes. Athletic director Rick Villareal insisted the stadium was, in his words, not some arms race for us. Almost fourteen percent of the student body turned out, one of the largest votes in school history. Fifty eight percent said yes. After the election the price estimate jumped by eighteen million dollars, to seventy eight million. At the press conference that followed, Villareal put it differently. There's an arms race going on with facilities, he said. This one will put us up there with everybody else.

This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
which amounted to a net increase of $7 per credit hour for each student, or approximately $840 per student over the course of four years

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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