Correction Appended

The Real World: for some it’s a pretty terrible reality television show on MTV, for others its life after Cornell, for others it’s the state of being they realize when they’re not heavily intoxicated after a long night at Johnny O’s. But regardless, the Real World is coming, and none of us can stop it. (Unless, that is, you are Hiro Nakamura).

The Real World is full of lots of big decisions, a lot less Keystone, and most likely a nine-to-five job that initially piques your interest, but could slowly eat away at you in the coming years. But for many a Cornellian, the Real World means a big number on a sheet of paper, soon to be deposited into your checking account.

These days it’s hard not to think about doing well right out of college. You could be an investment banker, making a cool 80 grand right out of school, rolling in the cash, wearing Zegna suits and Bottega shoes. If you, like hundreds of other Cornellians, are hoping to find a job in finance, I’ve no doubt seen you at the plethora of information sessions attempting to sell yourself to alumni who won’t remember you come morning. In some ways, it’s like nerd prostitution.

For pretty much all the aspiring financiers at Cornell, the money is probably the biggest draw. But consider this, even you, an Ivy League-educated elitist, with a penchant for numbers, will probably make less than a high school football coach. Yes, you read that right investment banking wannabes, a high school football coach.

They say everything is big in Texas, and that definitely includes high school football coaches’ salaries, and the gap between that number and what they pay teachers. The highest-paid coach in Texas, Sam Harrell of Ennis High School, makes $106,004. On average, teachers in Texas make about $31,000 less than their football counterparts. So maybe the first step to getting rich quick is playing football, but not being quite good enough to actually play professionally. It definitely sounds easier than taking intermediate accounting doesn’t it? Also, don’t forget to start developing a beer belly; a fit football coach is like Michael Jordan’s children actually being good at basketball –– impossible.

But high school football is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. When it comes to the big bucks, college is where it’s at. Not only do you have a consistent and loyal fan base, you feel like you’re doing some good by recruiting kids who never would have gotten into college in the first place. Take Pete Carrol and the USC Trojans, a team that notoriously gets special treatment when it comes to academic standing. Carroll is the highest-paid college football coach at a whopping $4.4 million per year. Now that’s cash money, son.

Even better, all of the top 100 football coaches make $375,000 or more. That’s more than what the average American family makes in seven years.

So why the big bucks? Obviously these people contribute more to society than anyone else, especially Wall Street power junkies, right?

In walks Jeff Tedford and Ben Braun, the head coach of football and the former men’s basketball coach at Cal Berkeley. Tedford makes an easy $1.85 million per year, while Braun picked up a check for about $1 million. Current men's Basketball head coach, Mike Montegomery, has an undiscolsed salary that is likely similar to his predecessor.

Berkeley, if you’re not well-versed in hippie geography, is in the state of California, from which I hail, which recently has had a nasty problem of lost money. You see, we don’t know where all our money went, it could be that new high-speed rail line that we thought up, or maybe just paying our representatives, but regardless –– it’s gone. Luckily, our Governor is an Austrian body builder who has no problem dealing with pesky Albanian loan sharks.

In the mean time, Berkeley has been facing a pretty enormous budget shortfall, forcing faculty and staff to take unpaid vacations, closing libraries on weekends, and generally cutting costs. During that same period of time, Berkeley’s athletic program has consistently lost money. This year the deficit was around $5.8 million, of which Tedford and Montgomery’s salary is about 48 percent.

So if they’re not making the University money, then why do they get paid so much? Athletics, in some ways, is like the university’s armed forces. They go off to rival schools and hopefully lay down the law. Similar to our own government, all our money on defense is not a luxury, it’s a matter of national security!

Some regiments are better than others; for example, basketball, hockey and lacrosse do a better job of showing who’s boss than football has in recent weeks. It’s all about pride. There’s something great about saying we decimated those idiots from Cambridge two weeks ago, or that we were able to show that smarts always triumph over brawn in the heart of the SEC.

But at what cost? I’m sure that Tedford and Montgomery would agree that they’d rather see more kids getting the education they really need than having a few extra dollars to pad their wallets. After all, it’s Berkeley, and having a lot of money just means those hippies are going to stage a sit-in at your multi-million dollar house. Carroll, on the other hand, needs the money; he’s from Los Angeles and he needs to wear Armani suits to distract onlookers from the fact he’s from NorCal, and to constantly fight the urge to say “hella.” (I feel your pain Pete). Not to mention, those chemicals to feather his hair don’t come cheap.

Follow Up: The University of California has planned to increase tuition for students by 32 percent over the next two semesters in order to close it's enormous budget gap. The tuition increase is expected to be permanent.

Correction: This article originally stated that Ben Braun was the current head coach of the Cal Berkeley Men's Basketball program. In fact, Mike Montgomery is the current head coach of Cal's Men's Basketball program, and Ben Braun is now coaching at Rice University. The Sun regrets this error.