nike.. No because I believe graduation is the most important thing. Based on academics you earned money to help you do your studies, based on football they earned money to help their studies. In either case, the ultimate goal of the money awarded to both should be so they complete their education. Football, band, cheerleading etc I believe are just ways to help you earn money to go to school. They should just be a side activity with the ultimate goal of helping you get an education. Even some financial aid is based on academics. You may have not earned the financial aid for your academic abilities, but if you aren't on track to graduate you will lose it.
IceHouse.. no, I'm sure you are most likely RIGHT. At UT, and most state schools athletic success probably gets you more money donated. I was talking about top 20 schools like Rice. According to the study I read, if Rice did well at athletics it wouldn't necessarily increase their funding... because a lot of their alumni would be upset if they sacrificed academics for athletics.
In other words, it depends on the attitude of your alumni. Some schools have alumni likely to donate based on athletics, some have alumni that donate based on athletics It just all depends
but there was a study that did show when Northwestern went to the Rose Bowl with Barnett, their enrollment increased.
Nike, before I subtract out those players. Did all of those players that went to the NFL not graduate? I don't want to add someone back in that was already counted in the list of people who graduated.
pga... that would shock me Usually a school of that calibar has a set number of students that they allow to enroll. They turn away thousands, and don't usually increase their enrollment.
I agree that low success rates of athletes is a problem. My only issue here is that I don't think these numbers are a good measure of whether athletes are ending up better off as a result of their education. I don't think comparing their graduation rate to that of a generic UT student is the right measure. If the point of a school is educate and/or improve a person's future potential, then the real measure (and I accept this is difficult or impossible to do) is whether these students are better off than they would have been had they not gone to UT. For example, did the football experience improve their work ethic that might help them down the road? Will going to classes and learning basic math and english skills help them get a better job? If so, then the school experience served a purpose. And if their success level is similar to that of other students of the same caliber, then there's no reason to judge them separately as athletes. I just don't think that this study measures it. It tells us that they don't graduate very often. But that's a bad proxy measure for the real issue above.
Major, fair enough. The study doesn't tell everything you are right... I still think it should be made an issue, and the university should actively work to improve it though.
But if these athletes are graduating at rates similar to other students of the same caliber, then what you're asking is for the university to somehow make these students to be something that they are not, or pay *more* attention to these students than other similar non-athlete students, which is just as unfair. I think the goal should be that student athletes should graduate at the same rate as similarly skilled student non-athletes. In other words, the fact that they are athletes shouldn't be relevant. I have no idea if this is happening though, because this study doesn't get to that issue.
major, I don't think they are at the same rate though, until I see a rate at which UT shows what percentage of total students graduate when transfers aren't counted against you. I'm not ready to bump 40% of to 70%, that is saying that 30% of all UT players not only go to the NFL, but leave early and go to the NFL. I'm sure at least some of those players graduate and woudl be counted twice if you added them back in again.
I'm not bumping 40% to 70% though. My problem is with the 70%. That includes everyone from national merit scholars to top 10%ers to people who barely got into UT. Each of those groups is going to have different graduation rates, and understandably so. I accept that the athletes group (or the football team, more specifically) is going to be, as a whole, at a lower caliber than the school as a whole. The question is, what is the graduation rate of an average student non-athlete that has similar credentials to the average football player. That is the rate the football team should be graduating, on average - not the 70% of the school as a whole. Otherwise, you're expecting people to graduate at rates of people that are higher caliber students than them on average. If those kids, on average, graduate at a 30% clip, then I'd be thrilled with how the football team is doing. If they graduate at 60%, then I'd be disappointed. But these numbers tell me nothing about that.
I was just curious what the rates were among the top public schools. Of the schools that I consider to be the top public schools (with div 1 fb teams, I may have missed a few): Cal - 47% Univ of Virginia - 74% UCLA - 63% Michigan - 68% UNC - 64% Wisconsin - 67% Georgia Tech - 53% Illinois - 73% Washington - 75% Penn State - 84% Florida - 80% Texas - 40% Maryland - 63% Florida and Penn State are most impressive. Cal obviously is willing more than other top 25 schools to give up some academics for football. It is surprising because you would expect a school ranked that high to have a better rate. I'm guessing their average student rate is really high.. Then again I remember reading somewhere that they had one of the lowest averages for fb players as far as SAT's go.
major.. who do you compare them to though.... is there even a group at Texas that has similiar credentials to the football team?????? I'm not sure if the average texas player has the credentials to be admitted so I'm not sure who they compare to
Nevermind, I understand what you mean. It is complicated to calculate. I may have to put in a request that the NCAA starts publishing the info you are suggesting
Honestly, I'm not sure. But I would venture to guess there's a statistical pattern to it. For example, let's say we just used SATs (in reality, you'd want a more sophisticated measure), you might find: SATs Grad Rate 1500s 90% 1400s 85% 1300s 80% 1200s 70% 1100s 65% 1000s 60% Then if the football players have 800s SATs, you could statistically estimate 50%. The real model would be far more complete, and you could actually take data from schools all across the country to see how graduation rates drop as academic credentials drop to come up with a more complete model. But all I'm saying is, in the example above, if you had a subset of students that had SATs in the 1500s, but were graduating at 70%, I'd be concerned. On the other hand, if you had another group that was graduating 70% but had SATs in the 1000s, I'd be thrilled. I just don't think you can compare a subgroup that we know is below-average academically and expect them to match the average graduation rates.
You make a good point, that I hadn't really thought about. I have been spoiled by Vandy fb players graduating at or even above the student rate in past years... but I know that isn't going to happen at most places... and they don't have SAT scores in the 800s You make a good point, that I do need to take into account.
