Could someone rationalize athletic scholarships for me?

Well,

I just came up with this though process now, so it might sound like BS.

These athletes aren't getting free money because they did great in high school. In my mind, because of the money, athletes work for the university in a sense. Athletes work long hard hours on top of school. Things that an athlete offers to the school...

Reputation/Recognition - Athletics is a huge part of how an institution is viewed. Athletes work to maintain a certain prestige.

School Spirit/pride - I've experienced a school with no school spirit and with tons of school spirit. The difference? A quality athletic program. Students want to be a part of a school they have pride in; athletics is one way the students can all come together and have that.

Now; athletes aren't going to work for the school without pay.

Depending on the school, especially if it is D2, a really good running team can bring in walk-ons that want to go to that school and compete on that team. Let's say a D2 coach only has 2 full scholarships to work with or something like that; he/she brings in good talent and fields a competitive team, thus bringing in a lot of walk-on money if there are 15 or so kids per team. Since D2 coaches don't get paid a lot and a lot of meets only require a bus trip, a running program can be close to self sufficient if budgeted properly.

And if you are talking about big time sports like football and basketball... c'mon. A LOT of people go to Alabama solely so they can feel like they were a part of the Crimson Tide, same with UNC basketball, etc. They bring in a lot of kids, and subsequently a lot of money. I didn't even get into the tv revenue and things like that.

Why should they care if someone is good at drawing or singing?

The real answer is that it brings attention and sometimes money to the university.

thousands of walk-on athletes 'work' for a school but don't get paid. I did. I was just glad to be on a team.

School spirit is a fair answer and a good one - although really...it is teaching a rough lesson - that sports is how to measure a school's worthiness.

what is 'walk on money?' virtually every school in the country has a selective admissions policy - the freshman class will be the same size with or without a few extra people on a d2 xc team.

drawing and singing are academic pursuits. part of the liberal arts. And I am not sure there are painting scholarships anyway. Are there?

Big time sports, I can see the benefit of a competitive team - I was in Ann Arbor on a game day once and it was pretty spectacular.

No Way wrote:

Why should they care if someone is good at drawing or singing?

The real answer is that it brings attention and sometimes money to the university.

Yes, I think so.

Obviously an extreme example, but look at Coach K at Duke. The university's reputation--*academic* reputation--has soared during his tenure, and I believe a big reason is that more kids were interested in Duke, based on the team's success and visibility; as a result, more kids applied; accordingly, the university was able to be more selective, and the average quality of students rose--which made the university more attractive to top students (and profs), so the cycle fed itself.

I think a good argument can be made for having *no* extracurricular activities funded by a university: you go to college to learn, period. But the reality in the US is: if you want to attract the best students, you have to offer more.

A distinction needs to be made between an explanation for why they are given and a justification for why they are given. So far, folks have given explanations, but not justifications. I think agip was asking for the latter.

It's hard to see how they are justified, but I think that the best argument is that university culture is based in excellence, and attracting excellence in every aspect of human effort--physical, musical, scholarly, etc.--ought to be forefront in the mind of university administrators. This doesn't justify the excessive amount of attention paid to athletic excellence in relation to the other sorts of excellence that a university recruits, but I think that it does justify to some extent athletic scholarships as a part of the university mission.

I think the explanation (not justification) for the excess in college athletics is that athletic excellence is a form of excellence that is most easily communicated to the wider public, so it is an excellence that is more highly valued for marketing purposes.

I doubt your example is very compelling. I was looking at Duke for undergrad about the time that Coach K was having his first national success (i.e. before any significant effect on student body could have taken hold). At that point it was ranked #8 in the US News and World Report. I think it is ranked about the same now.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

I doubt your example is very compelling. I was looking at Duke for undergrad about the time that Coach K was having his first national success (i.e. before any significant effect on student body could have taken hold). At that point it was ranked #8 in the US News and World Report. I think it is ranked about the same now.

While it might have remained stagnant in the rankings, the endowment and student body numbers might have soared. It looks like the endowment in 1990 was $505,031,000, but is currently $2,440,878,000. That is a growth of like 500%. I am sure it is not exclusively due to basketball, but we all know what makes the boosters open their wallets!

Singing and drawing are curricular.

I pitched for a baseball team that won a national championship in college.

My sophomore year there were 42 kids who tried out for the baseball team. Most were recruited but only a few of us got money. The following spring we won the national championship and that fall over 125 kids showed up. Nearly all of them failed to make the team. A few transferred but the vast majority did not. Probably 100 kids came to my school to get their education at least partly because of the baseball team's success. Let's just say that a 4 year degree is going to cost $100K at the time. That's $10M in revenue in one recruiting year alone.

Well, it would be outrageous if athletes in the money sports weren't given scholarships. The school is making money directly and indirectly from football and basketball through TV, ticket sales, alumni donations, and national visibility. Without the NCAA's rules, I think the kids would probably draw salaries (on the books; everyone knows stars are paid under the table already).

"thousands of walk-on athletes 'work' for a school but don't get paid. I did. I was just glad to be on a team."

That's how it works. You pay for some better athletes to get your school recognition and then slower people come because of that. A coach who has a fast team might just be an assembler of talent but people will still come because they think he can work magic.

"School spirit is a fair answer and a good one - although really...it is teaching a rough lesson - that sports is how to measure a school's worthiness."

It may not be want everyone wants to hear but that's the way it is. I know of a few D2 schools who ignored their athletic departments for a long time and enrollment dropped below 500 students because high schoolers didn't even know the place existed. It's not really about measuring the worth of a school by its athletics. The sports teams are ambassadors of that school. When my team goes to a cross country meet half way across the country and we all walk into a restaurant with our team jackets on, that's advertising for the school. When the quarterback is on the cover of Sports Illustrated wearing the schools uniform, that is a huge amount of advertising and pretty much pays for him being there.

"what is 'walk on money?' virtually every school in the country has a selective admissions policy - the freshman class will be the same size with or without a few extra people on a d2 xc team."

Bigger, more prestigious schools are going to be selective. But there are a lot of small no name schools who are desperate for more freshmen to come in. A few extra people on the xc team won't make a huge difference but a few extra on the xc, baseball, volleyball, football, lacrosse, basketball, etc goes a long way.

"drawing and singing are academic pursuits. part of the liberal arts. And I am not sure there are painting scholarships anyway. Are there?"

There absolutely are. States give out a lot of money for scholarships in the arts and individual schools usually have money set aside specifically for arts majors. I know of one d2 school that has 10 full ride scholarships set aside every year for music majors.

Dick Doobey wrote:

I pitched for a baseball team that won a national championship in college.

My sophomore year there were 42 kids who tried out for the baseball team. Most were recruited but only a few of us got money. The following spring we won the national championship and that fall over 125 kids showed up. Nearly all of them failed to make the team. A few transferred but the vast majority did not. Probably 100 kids came to my school to get their education at least partly because of the baseball team's success. Let's just say that a 4 year degree is going to cost $100K at the time. That's $10M in revenue in one recruiting year alone.

That may all be a population shift, however. Most larger schools with any selectivity have many, many more applicants than they have spaces in the freshman class.

Dick Doobey wrote:

I pitched for a baseball team that won a national championship in college.

My sophomore year there were 42 kids who tried out for the baseball team. Most were recruited but only a few of us got money. The following spring we won the national championship and that fall over 125 kids showed up. Nearly all of them failed to make the team. A few transferred but the vast majority did not. Probably 100 kids came to my school to get their education at least partly because of the baseball team's success. Let's just say that a 4 year degree is going to cost $100K at the time. That's $10M in revenue in one recruiting year alone.

So before your team won it all the school was not filling up its freshman class? All that revenue is related to the the baseball team? If this thought process is typical of the graduates of this fine institution then I am inclined to believe that they could not get enough people to attend.

Johnny Pony wrote:

Mr. Obvious wrote:

I doubt your example is very compelling. I was looking at Duke for undergrad about the time that Coach K was having his first national success (i.e. before any significant effect on student body could have taken hold). At that point it was ranked #8 in the US News and World Report. I think it is ranked about the same now.

While it might have remained stagnant in the rankings, the endowment and student body numbers might have soared. It looks like the endowment in 1990 was $505,031,000, but is currently $2,440,878,000. That is a growth of like 500%. I am sure it is not exclusively due to basketball, but we all know what makes the boosters open their wallets!

Now you are shifting the goalposts. Nice to change the criteria after the original statement has been shown to be false.

Anyway, Research indicates that athletic success mostly leads to an increase in giving for athletic departments. Any link between endowment and athletic success is tenuous at best. (I would submit that if you drew a plot of the growth of the endowment at Duke, that plot would look at lot closer to comparable schools in the US News rankings than it would to the comparable schools in the AP Final poll for basketball).

There is a long tradition of athletics in college (long before scholarships). It goes back to the English university tradition of places like Rugby.

Some potential justifications:

1) athletics serves as a marketing tool for the university to raise its profile. There are some obvious cases where this works in terms of increases in enrollment, applications (there is a fee there), increased giving (not just to the athletic department). Georgia Southern and Georgetown experienced this with their football and basketball programs, respectively.

2) it draws in more well-rounded students.

3) it allows people with a talent who might not otherwise be able to afford college (although to be honest this is less of an issue in recent years with loans and grants and such)

I believe that scholarship money comes from donations, not from public funds. Yes, the athletes are going to class and such, but the incremental cost is small and the scholarship covers it.

Athletics come under a unversity's holistic mission policy.

http://collegeapps.about.com/od/glossaryofkeyterms/f/What-Are-Holistic-Admissions.htm

I would suggest calling a local college's NCAA compliance officer.

Ohio State is not Vandy, but it is still a very good school.

Really, unless one is going Ivy League for the connections, why go in serious debt for a degree. Lots of good stuff recently about figuring out the value of that college degree.

luv2run wrote:

I believe that scholarship money comes from donations, not from public funds. Yes, the athletes are going to class and such, but the incremental cost is small and the scholarship covers it.

This may be true at large public universities with large donor bases but it is assuredly not the case everywhere. One university that I am aware of (listed fairly high in the "regional colleges" rankings) fund >80% of the cost of its athletic programs, including scholarships, through student fees. Apparently those other students think this is OK, as I haven't heard any protests about the continual increase in fees but I can't see where the presence of some athletes on campus adds thousands of dollars of value to a students experience of college life.