Saving money sometimes turns out to be surprisingly expensive, especially the projected savings do not subtract some very significant costs. It is fortunate that UMaine President Peter Hoff took those costs into account Monday when rejecting a proposal to cut University of Maine athletic programs,

It has been just more than a year since President Hoff instructed the Athletic Budget Advisory Committee to produce savings and revenue of at least $487,000 during the next two years. This was a reasonable order, given as part of a system-wide belt-tightening in response to increases in wages and even greater increases in health insurance premiums.

The committee’s final proposal was to drop men’s soccer and men’s and women’s swimming and diving. Dropping soccer, the committee reported, would save $132,616, swimming and diving another $304,446 and increased revenues elsewhere would more than make up the difference.

The problem with this proposal, as was revealed at a hearing held last week by the Athletic Advisory Board, was that it provided an answer based upon incomplete calculations. There is much more to the UMaine athletic budget than staff, uniforms, travel and equipment.

There also are students, students who pay tuition. Soccer, swimming and diving offer few scholarships; most UMaine student-athletes in these sports pay full retail price, or very close to it, and likely would go to school somewhere else if the sports they love were dropped. While the Budget Advisory Committee did not include this loss of tuition in its calculations, men’s soccer coach Travers Evans did – the lost tuition in just his program would be $421,000. Add to that the more than $50,000 the program brings in through fund-raising, clinics and NCAA payments and the savings quickly become a net loss.

The loss actually would have been worse than mere money. Because these programs are not high-profile nationally or even regionally, most of these student-athletes are home grown. They are Maine kids who have chosen to attend college in Maine and who probably would go elsewhere if the sports they love are not offered here.

They also tend to be good students; the grade-point average of the men’s soccer team last spring was 3.05. At a time when brain drain is one of this state’s most urgent problems, a budget remedy that could lead to the loss of these students is shockingly shortsighted.

The advisory committee’s recommendation is far-sighted. Keep soccer, swimming and diving, and aggressively beef up revenue-raising measures throughout the athletic department. If, after two years, increased donations and modest increases in ticket prices do not fill the gap, re-examine the finances of all 19 UMaine sports programs. In accepting this recommendation, President Hoff did the math and got the right answer.