After an atrocious 2-10 record for the football team and a mediocre basketball season, some University of Maryland sports fans would say that there wasn’t even a point for their team to show up. Eight other Terrapins teams, however, may find that they actually can’t show up, as the administration decided to cut these teams as a way to curb the school’s ever-present debt.

Cutting eight teams rather than cutting the budget for all teams is an unfair consequence of the school’s mistakes. In order to repair its $83 million debt, the school should have cut the budget in a way that would affect all athletes equally, rather than entirely eliminating certain sports and not changing the budget of others.

It’s the duty of the athletic department to prevent a crisis such as this in order to ensure the success and well-being of their student-athletes. For the 166 student-athletes and 12 coaches affected, the schools decision will strip them of years of hard work and determination that got them to the D-I level of competition.

Too much money was poured into football and men’s basketball, and now other sports must take the hit because of improper financing. In 2011, the school spent $12,991,715 on the football and men’s basketball teams and a combined total of $11,310,768 for the other 23 sports. With minimum profits and poor publicity earned from the high earning sports, other programs are forced to suffer.

Meanwhile, the cut sports have a long history of athletic and academic success. The men’s and women’s swim and dive teams boasts a combined total of eight ACC championships, and the men’s tennis team earned the highest GPA of all teams last year. Despite these differences, these are three of the teams being cut.

For Acrobatics and Tumbling team member Jamie Burke, a ’10 graduate of Wootton, the elimination of her team meant that her sacrifices to compete at the highest level of her sport have been useless. While Burke is sympathetic to the school’s problems, she feels that the administration could have taken other measures to solve the crisis.

Although the school gave each team the opportunity to raise eight years’ worth of their team’s expenses in just seven months, the task is nearly impossible. Faced with the outrageous task of raising $11 million, the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams have captured the attention of the sports world by already raising $1 million. Despite the team’s best efforts, raising $10 million more by June 30 is improbable.

While some may say that the football and men’s basketball teams also bring in the most money for the school, the administration has shown that it values the mainstream teams over the smaller teams by cutting eight teams rather than adjusting the budget in a way that would affect all teams similarly.

During this time of financial crisis, the school should prioritize all student-athletes equally when deciding on how to fix their mistakes. By cutting these programs and allowing the debt to climb, the school is hurting its reputation and quickly losing the confidence of its supporters.