Der Gasser- Letter to Editor

[larrybard]

Mike Andrews wrote:

Let me make a comment on your two students per instructor question. Our goal is to get back to one student per instructor. Two students (even when the instructor drives for free) is not fun.

Mike, I don't disagree at all about the goal of one student per instructor. My point was that since we're talking about scarce resources (instructors and money), maybe, roughly speaking, if DE revenues net of direct DE expenses were something resembling $20,000, then a back of the envelope calculation might indicate that RTR could have reduced by 50% the entry fee paid by each instructor with two students during this season. (I know, I know -- there are all sorts of flaws with such a calculation, including that it is a dynamic model; reduce instructor fees and presumably there would have been more instructors, and a different number of students too.) It was just meant as a starting point for illustration/calculation. If there are six events, $300 fee per event, 15 instructors with two students at each -- I'm picking the numbers virtually out of the air -- then that's $13,500 to pay for half the cost of every one of those instructors. That's the sort of calculation I had in mind. Change that to 22 instructors -- maybe now with one student apiece -- and $20,000 is more than enough to subsidize each of the instructors to the tune of 50%, using the above numbers.