This morning in the USA Today they published graduation rates of the football teams involved in bowl games this year. It's amazing the depths that some schools will sink to in an attempt to put a winner on the field. The term "student-athlete" has really become a misnomer. The lowest scores of bowl-bound teams are: Louisville 35% UTEP 34% Texas 34% Pittsburgh 31% http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/2004-12-07-bowl-team-grad-rates_x.htm Posted 12/7/2004 1:07 AM Updated 12/7/2004 2:29 AM Bowl participants' graduation rates mostly below average By Steve Wieberg and Jack Carey, USA TODAY They might be above average on the field. But almost two-thirds of college football's 56 bowl-bound programs have player graduation rates lower than the 54% average in NCAA Division I-A, a USA TODAY analysis finds. Thirty-five programs, including five of the eight in the top-tier Bowl Championship Series, fell beneath the 54% standard, as compiled by the U.S. Department of Education and released by the NCAA. USA TODAY used the four-year average for each school, rather than one-year grad rates, to more accurately gauge a program's classroom performance. The latest rate tracks players who entered school on scholarship from 1994-97, giving them six years to graduate. Twenty-eight programs had four-year rates of 50% or better. Grad rates are not computed for one bowl entry, Navy, because it doesn't award athletics aid. Highest among the bowl programs: 78% for Boston College and Syracuse, 77% for Notre Dame and 75% for Virginia. All but Syracuse, however, graduated football players at a lower rate than males in their respective student bodies. Lowest among the bowl programs: Pittsburgh's 31%, Texas' and Texas-El Paso's 34% and Louisville's 35%. Texas' rate fell 31 points beneath the school's overall male student-body rate. This season's brainiest bowl: the Continental Tire, matching BC and North Carolina (53%). At the other end: Tostitos Fiesta, matching Pitt and Utah (41%). Contributing: Wire reports
Use 'em up and throw 'em out. It really has become disgraceful. With the tiny percentage of these athletes that go on to the NFL, education must be emphasized. Isn't this why schools exist in the first place? To educate? When I look at the teams in the Rose Bowl, is it safe to assume that only 6-7 players on the field at one time will graduate?
Behad - that's interesting. I wonder what the answer is... especially if you add in the possibility of transfer and count that as a "fail", the way they do for athletes (or at least they used to). TJ - No, school athletic programs do not exist to supplement an education. They exist to feed the egos of alumni and former football players, who no doubt are large contributors to the universities.
How does it account for those who drop out of school and go pro, or for that matter, athlete students who just drop out for one reason or another? Here's my beef with this 4 year rate: It takes at least 120 hours to complete a degree. 12 hours is a full time student. 120 / 12 is 10 semesters. That's 5 years, or for those who are able to do it, 4 years and 24 hours in summer school. So either they need to quit b****ing about 4 year grad rates, or they neeed to bump up "full time" to 15 hours a semester. And yes, this is coming from a non-athlete who took 4.5 years to graduate, even with AP credits and testing out of 28 hours of classes, and taking summer school on top of that.
Meggo -- you aren't interpreting the numbers accurately. A four year average graduation rate is used when calculating UT's 34%. This means they take the averages from the class of 1998,99,2000,2001 etc. Taking a one-year figure would have the potential for outliers. However, they measure graduation based on whether the student graduates within 6 years of enrollment. This is how every graduation rate study that I've ever seen does it.
It's sick really, quite sick... And students of schools should not allow such behavior to go on. A university should be a place of integrity, and I'd rather risk losing at sports than win knowing it was nothing but a fraud.. with people who aren't even real students. That's why I care nothing about college sports other than the school I go to. The only reason for me to root for a college team would be that they were fellow students... who actually GRADUATED and ATTENDED a few classes.. "There is a wrong culture in sports and I'm declaring war on it." - Vanderbilt Chancellor E. Gordon Gee
behad.. in the article it says that the rate for texas athletes was 31% below the school as a whole so...
So much for only recruiting "good kids who graduate." Grad rates have been an issue for some time. We've got to do a better job of making sure these guys finish school. Some of them are very diligent and good at balancing football and school. Others simply wait until their 4 years of eligibility are up before they focus on finishing their degrees. At any rate, the facilities and resources are there, but they're being underutilized. At any rate, Texas should shoot for at least a 50% grad rate. Anything less is far below our standards.
The SAT scores make it even worse.. some scores allow their football team to have an average SAT score like 400 points below the schools average..... no wonder they don't graduate.. they have no business even being there in the first place
Absolutely agree. However, until the big money is removed from the equation, and it never will, that won't ever be the main goal of the vast majority of NCAA football programs.
by the way... Altough we got a lot of crap for it, Vanderbilt did away with the athletic department last year and put it under the relm of the rest of the student life... Seperate athletic departments just help create more corruption. When you have an athletic department basically doing everything on it's own... with the only goal of winning these type things happen. More schools need to reign in their athletic departments and make sure they are abiding by the universities standards
I'm not saying everyone has to do away with their athletic departments.. but they definitely should be under more strict control of the president etc... As it is now many of them are basically acting on their own with seperate funding streams etc
It'd be funny if every single D1 school suddenly started using an admissions policy for student athletes that was consistent with the academic standards that they hold the rest of their student body to. Would college and pro sports start sucking? Or would no one care, since the sports (rivalries, competition, pride) themselves are the big draw.. and not the level of atheletic performance on the field?
Hey Rocket Fan, What do you think of Chancellor Gordon Gee? I always thought he was an unusual guy with a huge ego (he always seemed to be wearing a bowtie). I have heard some of the local sports talk shows on the radio say that he only did away with the Athletic Department at Vanderbilt to gain notoriety since Vandy's athletic teams are not that good (except for Women's Basketball).
