I would really love to see the numbers on how much money the NCAA actually brings in to schools.
And I mean profit, not just revenue.
I think its more donations than profit, and I imagine they eat through it pretty thoroughly.
I'm studying for a masters at the University of Edinburgh, no sports teams, and they seem to be doing quite well.
So, there's no way to measure the actual fiscal impact that the NCAA has on schools? That's... convenient.
It would also be nice if there were a way to measure what sort of an impact having such a thoroughly corrupt organization so entrenched with college administration has. I suspect it's not a good one.
But hey, god forbid we expect those college athletes to have any skin in the game, right? Just the poor kids who aren't any good at basketball or football.
I assume that there's some mesh of statistics out there for either view.
And I don't want to discount the abilities of athletes, one of the top performing students in my BA program was also a swimmer. But it's bullshit to somehow think that athletes are special and shouldn't have any more skin than other students.
Equality under the law, amirite? (yes, I know that's not what that means)
I would really love to see the numbers on how much money the NCAA actually brings in to schools.
And I mean profit, not just revenue.
I think its more donations than profit, and I imagine they eat through it pretty thoroughly.
I'm studying for a masters at the University of Edinburgh, no sports teams, and they seem to be doing quite well.
So, there's no way to measure the actual fiscal impact that the NCAA has on schools? That's... convenient.
It would also be nice if there were a way to measure what sort of an impact having such a thoroughly corrupt organization so entrenched with college administration has. I suspect it's not a good one.
But hey, god forbid we expect those college athletes to have any skin in the game, right? Just the poor kids who aren't any good at basketball or football.
Making them put skin in the game is pointless, we weren't really planning on graduating more than 25% of them anyways.
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
The trouble with college sports is that it's Hoop Dreams on an institutional scale. For a handful of major universities and an even smaller handful of smaller schools, the sports teams bring in money. For everyone else, it's a massive cost sink whose largest justification is that it can bring in diversity and provide an avenue for scholastically average but otherwise disciplined students to get scholarships.
There's also a trap that schools can get into where they have a magic season or two - get their ball team high up in the NCAA tournament - and that sets the expectation for future seasons. So, the fluke becomes an excuse to massively dump cash into the athletics program trying to recapture the dream.
The big draw of athletics, in the financial sense, is that donors love them. There's nothing like a winning season to boost donations to scholarships and campaigns across the board. Again, this can backfire if donors get expectations that the school cannot afford to match.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
The trouble with college sports is that it's Hoop Dreams on an institutional scale. For a handful of major universities and an even smaller handful of smaller schools, the sports teams bring in money. For everyone else, it's a massive cost sink whose largest justification is that it can bring in diversity and provide an avenue for scholastically average but otherwise disciplined students to get scholarships.
There's also a trap that schools can get into where they have a magic season or two - get their ball team high up in the NCAA tournament - and that sets the expectation for future seasons. So, the fluke becomes an excuse to massively dump cash into the athletics program trying to recapture the dream.
The big draw of athletics, in the financial sense, is that donors love them. There's nothing like a winning season to boost donations to scholarships and campaigns across the board. Again, this can backfire if donors get expectations that the school cannot afford to match.
So we may even be better off with meritocracy + letting the rich in if they full price. It is still unfair (but no more so then letting athletes in who don't have the credentials) but at least it avoids the collateral harms that come from sports.
I know some schools were looking at doing, the exact opposite of what this stupid law accomplishes. The idea was to raise tuition and then use the extra money to increase need-based scholarships. Which has its own issues, I know several people who despite having parents earning north of 200k got fuck-all for college for instance, but at least that has a rational goal.
Is there anyway would could just cede Arizona back to Mexico at this point?
It really is a shame sometimes that this forum limits the insulting terminology you can direct at other forumers. There really is no adequate way to express my disgust for Nomadic Circle that wouldn't get me permabanned.
His repugnant ideas seem more apt coming from a 17th century advocate of Imperialism than any contemporary human being.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
The trouble with college sports is that it's Hoop Dreams on an institutional scale. For a handful of major universities and an even smaller handful of smaller schools, the sports teams bring in money. For everyone else, it's a massive cost sink whose largest justification is that it can bring in diversity and provide an avenue for scholastically average but otherwise disciplined students to get scholarships.
There's also a trap that schools can get into where they have a magic season or two - get their ball team high up in the NCAA tournament - and that sets the expectation for future seasons. So, the fluke becomes an excuse to massively dump cash into the athletics program trying to recapture the dream.
The big draw of athletics, in the financial sense, is that donors love them. There's nothing like a winning season to boost donations to scholarships and campaigns across the board. Again, this can backfire if donors get expectations that the school cannot afford to match.
So we may even be better off with meritocracy + letting the rich in if they full price. It is still unfair (but no more so then letting athletes in who don't have the credentials) but at least it avoids the collateral harms that come from sports.
I think I can get with you on this idea, SKFM.
IIRC, that's actually how Harvard works.
Harvard gets enough in donations every year that they could give every student a full ride but they don't because students will pay. Now, we can have a debate about whether poor people have a good shot at getting into Harvard or not and I'm sure that not every university (surely not most public universities) have that kind of revenue raising power, but the state of need based aid is atrocious in the American higher education field.
Harvard isn't interested in whether students have "skin in the game" or whatever. Harvard would like to charge everybody tuition; they'd just rather foot the bill to get the students they really want than lose them to some other school. That's wonderful for a private or research institution that targets the most elite applicants; public universities have a different mission, for which that model makes less sense.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
Harvard isn't interested in whether students have "skin in the game" or whatever. Harvard would like to charge everybody tuition; they'd just rather foot the bill to get the students they really want than lose them to some other school. That's wonderful for a private or research institution that targets the most elite applicants; public universities have a different mission, for which that model makes less sense.
Hmm, that's true.
Though I think that more need based aid is important, especially on the public university stage. Especially since I have never seen a need based scholarship or grant that can't be taken away if you drop below a measly 2.0 GPA.
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
Are those athletic education grants and scholarships?
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
Are those athletic education grants and scholarships?
No, they are scholarships based on financial need and academic success. They are grants that help fund things such as research in a ton of different areas.
It also helps pay to maintain the working nuclear reactor in the engineering department
Edit: most of the funding for a lot of that does come from donations, but the athletic department here puts money back into the school itself and not just the athletic department. Most, if not all, big ten schools do this. They use athletics to fund the school to help keep tuition down
It's also worth noting here that Harvard - and the other Ivys - are actually not very large schools. It has got 30,000 students - 20K of them undergraduate - but that's equivalent to the student population of the University of Nevada, Reno. There are more students going to public universities in Ohio alone than there are in the entire Ivy League.
The Ivy business model is not infinitely scalable. It's entirely based around exclusive access, small student populations and wealthy donors.
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
Are those athletic education grants and scholarships?
No, they are scholarships based on financial need and academic success. They are grants that help fund things such as research in a ton of different areas.
It also helps pay to maintain the working nuclear reactor in the engineering department
Wait, so Scott Walker has nukes? Can we invade Wisconsin to bring them democracy?
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I think it's too easy to discount the worth that athletic programs do bring into their schools. But that doesn't mean that athletes inherently have more "skin in the game" than academic students, as surely the strength of academic programs is more important in drawing students.
It's also worth noting here that Harvard - and the other Ivys - are actually not very large schools. It has got 30,000 students - 20K of them undergraduate - but that's equivalent to the student population of the University of Nevada, Reno. There are more students going to public universities in Ohio alone than there are in the entire Ivy League.
The Ivy business model is not infinitely scalable. It's entirely based around exclusive access, small student populations and wealthy donors.
I agree with you, Phil, but I think it might be a good place to start looking, especially for the bigger, more affluent schools.
What public higher education, and I'd say education in general needs, is more taxpayer support in general. But it is a messy problem and there's no magic bullet.
If I know that at the UW-Madison, the revenue generated by the big 3 sports (football, basketball, hockey) is then used to find the less profitable sports, and also several million dollars worth of educational grants and scholarships.
Are those athletic education grants and scholarships?
No, they are scholarships based on financial need and academic success. They are grants that help fund things such as research in a ton of different areas.
It also helps pay to maintain the working nuclear reactor in the engineering department
Wait, so Scott Walker has nukes? Can we invade Wisconsin to bring them democracy?
You'll be treated as liberators.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
So, is there anyone on this forum who thinks Arizona's plan is a great idea? because it seams like the only thing we are debating is why it is a bad idea.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
So, is there anyone on this forum who thinks Arizona's plan is a great idea? because it seams like the only thing we are debating is why it is a bad idea.
That one crazy dude that thinks Medieval serfdom was a good idea. Can't remember his forum name and if I go back to try and find it I'll have to rage a few minutes just from glancing at his stupid fucking posts.
So, is there anyone on this forum who thinks Arizona's plan is a great idea? because it seams like the only thing we are debating is why it is a bad idea.
Well, while it might not be the best idea, there are upsides:
1. It saves schools money which they can put towards giving more need based scholarships.
2. If someone is not willing to take on $16k in debt, then it may not be worth expending the resources (limited class seats, scholarship money, state subsidies that support the school) to bring them into the system.
3. Having at least some debt may incentive the (admittedly rare) people who get a degree for the hell of it but are not motivated to work if their parents will support them to actually get jobs.
So, is there anyone on this forum who thinks Arizona's plan is a great idea? because it seams like the only thing we are debating is why it is a bad idea.
Well, while it might not be the best idea, there are upsides:
1. It saves schools money which they can put towards giving more need based scholarships.
2. If someone is not willing to take on $16k in debt, then it may not be worth expending the resources (limited class seats, scholarship money, state subsidies that support the school) to bring them into the system.
3. Having at least some debt may incentive the (admittedly rare) people who get a degree for the hell of it but are not motivated to work if their parents will support them to actually get jobs.
1. Yeah, like that's going to happen.
2. The ability to take on $16k in debt (or, more accurately, pay $2K a year in cash or take out a private loan and getting fucked for a much larger amount of debt) has absolutely nothing to do with how worthy a student is. If this was an attempt to keep dumb people out of Arizona state schools, they wouldn't cap merit based scholarship exemptions from this "skin in the game" dipshittery at 5%.
3. You really think there are a sizable number of college graduates who look at their student debt and go "Eh, no need to get a job"?
So, is there anyone on this forum who thinks Arizona's plan is a great idea? because it seams like the only thing we are debating is why it is a bad idea.
That one crazy dude that thinks Medieval serfdom was a good idea. Can't remember his forum name and if I go back to try and find it I'll have to rage a few minutes just from glancing at his stupid fucking posts.
The Nomadic Circle.
His views are special. They honestly can't even be considered "conservative" or "right wing" in any traditional sense. They're literally just out there.
And TNC's professed views are, regrettably, literally right-wing in the traditional sense. Harken back to a time before liberté, égalité, fraternité, so to speak.
There's one good thing about athletic scholarships: they are useful for giving chances to kids from crappy schools and backgrounds yet still have enough discipline to have a shot at making it.
And TNC's professed views are, regrettably, literally right-wing in the traditional sense. Harken back to a time before liberté, égalité, fraternité, so to speak.
Traditional sense was the wrong choice of words. I meant that his views can't be considered right-wing in the conventional sense.
If that's the case, why limit athletic scholarships to athletes?
Because it's a thing you can more easily distinguish yourself in when your situation sucks. Like, an A at the high school I went to (in suburban Ann Arbor) where there's a lot of funding and so really good teachers versus an A in inner city Detroit where they don't have the same resources are valued differently. But touchdowns are touchdowns, you know*?
In terms of access, class based affirmative action has always made sense to me.
Of course, ideally, higher education would cost what it did when my grandparents went to Michigan, $65/semester, including football tickets. That's ~600 dollars now. Now that will get you... season football tickets, and like a week of school.
Or the Ohio State game.
*This is not actually strictly true. Touchdowns in Florida, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are worth more.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
So, is there anyone on this forum who thinks Arizona's plan is a great idea? because it seams like the only thing we are debating is why it is a bad idea.
Well, while it might not be the best idea, there are upsides:
1. It saves schools money which they can put towards giving more need based scholarships.
2. If someone is not willing to take on $16k in debt, then it may not be worth expending the resources (limited class seats, scholarship money, state subsidies that support the school) to bring them into the system.
3. Having at least some debt may incentive the (admittedly rare) people who get a degree for the hell of it but are not motivated to work if their parents will support them to actually get jobs.
1. Yeah, like that's going to happen.
2. The ability to take on $16k in debt (or, more accurately, pay $2K a year in cash or take out a private loan and getting fucked for a much larger amount of debt) has absolutely nothing to do with how worthy a student is. If this was an attempt to keep dumb people out of Arizona state schools, they wouldn't cap merit based scholarship exemptions from this "skin in the game" dipshittery at 5%.
3. You really think there are a sizable number of college graduates who look at their student debt and go "Eh, no need to get a job"?
1. Whether or not it happens in practice, it is not a bad idea in theory. Full rides are probably generally more than what is needed to invent people to go to college.
2. It is not a matter of worthiness. It is about not wasting our money on services for someone who will not really appreciate it. $2,000 per semester is really a pretty nominal amount, and I wonder if expending public resources on someone who would go to school for $0 but not for $16k makes sense.
3. I don't think there are many, but to the extent they are out there, it might keep them from going. I will readily admit this is a weak argument.
If that's the case, why limit athletic scholarships to athletes?
Exactly. Athletic scholarships are about improving college sports teams, not making it easier for middling students to get an education. If they are supposed to help students without great grades get an education then they do an awful job at it, since the criteria for selecting recipients is literally as irrelevant to that goal as giving scholarships to people based on weight, or by choosing names from a hat.
If that's the case, why limit athletic scholarships to athletes?
Because it's a thing you can more easily distinguish yourself in when your situation sucks. Like, an A at the high school I went to (in suburban Ann Arbor) where there's a lot of funding and so really good teachers versus an A in inner city Detroit where they don't have the same resources are valued differently. But touchdowns are touchdowns, you know*?
In terms of access, class based affirmative action has always made sense to me.
Of course, ideally, higher education would cost what it did when my grandparents went to Michigan, $65/semester, including football tickets. That's ~600 dollars now. Now that will get you... season football tickets, and like a week of school.
Or the Ohio State game.
*This is not actually strictly true. Touchdowns in Florida, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are worth more.
Why not standardized testing instead, then? It doesn't have to be comprehensive or compulsory; it just has to be standardized. At least that is directly relevant to college-level academics.
You'll forgive me if I am skeptical that, given the financial incentives, athletic scholarships are strictly in the unbiased interest of students, and not, say, the football department. It strikes me as one of those schemes that largely benefit an entrenched interest but everyone left-wing is supposed to cheer for it nonetheless because a sliver goes to disadvantaged people.
If that's the case, why limit athletic scholarships to athletes?
Because it's a thing you can more easily distinguish yourself in when your situation sucks. Like, an A at the high school I went to (in suburban Ann Arbor) where there's a lot of funding and so really good teachers versus an A in inner city Detroit where they don't have the same resources are valued differently. But touchdowns are touchdowns, you know*?
In terms of access, class based affirmative action has always made sense to me.
Of course, ideally, higher education would cost what it did when my grandparents went to Michigan, $65/semester, including football tickets. That's ~600 dollars now. Now that will get you... season football tickets, and like a week of school.
Or the Ohio State game.
*This is not actually strictly true. Touchdowns in Florida, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are worth more.
Why not standardized testing instead, then? It doesn't have to be comprehensive or compulsory; it just has to be standardized. At least that is directly relevant to college-level academics.
You'll forgive me if I am skeptical that, given the financial incentives, athletic scholarships are strictly in the unbiased interest of students, and not, say, the football department. It strikes me as one of those schemes that largely benefit an entrenched interest but everyone left-wing is supposed to cheer for it nonetheless because a sliver goes to disadvantaged people.
I loathe standardized testing, for one. And inevitably that benefits the wealthy again, as they can afford ACT test prep courses, for example.
And obviously athletic scholarships (well, football and basketball scholarships) are all about the sports. But there are nice side effects. The nice thing is that they're frequently independent from the main university financially. And they generate all kinds of boosts in terms of application/funding boosts as a corollary. For example, Butler University recently made the Final Four in men's basketball and had applications skyrocket. Which... is dumb. But true!
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
So... the universities which got, presumably, displaced from the Final Four presumably had applications drop through a hole in the floor? That strikes me as a particularly aimless movement from one foot to the other for no good reason. How is the culture of athletic scholarships a good thing for your country's educational system in the aggregate?
Are the wealthy correspondingly unable to purchase personal training, or provide donations for their local team, etc.? This seems implausible.
You have already noted that athletic performance is not everywhere equally measured to begin with, and the competitive nature of it means that this is unlikely to change anyway.
Are the wealthy correspondingly unable to purchase personal training, or provide donations for their local team, etc.? This seems implausible.
Most of it is talent. Especially where things aren't equipment dependent (soccer, basketball, etc).
So... the universities which got, presumably, displaced from the Final Four presumably had applications drop through a hole in the floor? That strikes me as a particularly aimless movement from one foot to the other for no good reason. How is the culture of athletic scholarships a good thing for your country's educational system in the aggregate?
I don't think it is, in aggregate, but for individual schools and individual people it can be. As a slightly more rough example at the moment: because of Joe Paterno, Penn State went from a middle of nowhere land grant university to a highly regarded research institution.
But I went to a major athletic power, so I am slightly biased.
You have already noted that athletic performance is not everywhere equally measured to begin with, and the competitive nature of it means that this is unlikely to change anyway.
This is mostly because of population. If you excel in a highly populated area like Texas, you can trust that result more than someone who excels in say, Vermont.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
If it's talent, that's even worse: there's exactly zero reason to favor people already blessed with athletic genetics with scholarships for academic courses, other things constant.
Are you seriously agreeing that there's no aggregate benefit to the educational system? So it is really just university-affiliated sports teams holding higher education hostage to get talent in zero-sum competition with other sports teams?
Look, I'm aware that the present model of hitching higher education to a somewhat distinct field of human activity, namely research, is already a little disjointed to begin with. Your country funds primary education via state-enforced monopolies on lotteries; there's no practical reason against funding tertiary education via state-backed monopolies on profitable sports. But I think it is readily seen that it is not an egalitarian improvement and it is quite regressive, actually.
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I assume that there's some mesh of statistics out there for either view.
And I don't want to discount the abilities of athletes, one of the top performing students in my BA program was also a swimmer. But it's bullshit to somehow think that athletes are special and shouldn't have any more skin than other students.
Equality under the law, amirite? (yes, I know that's not what that means)
Making them put skin in the game is pointless, we weren't really planning on graduating more than 25% of them anyways.
The trouble with college sports is that it's Hoop Dreams on an institutional scale. For a handful of major universities and an even smaller handful of smaller schools, the sports teams bring in money. For everyone else, it's a massive cost sink whose largest justification is that it can bring in diversity and provide an avenue for scholastically average but otherwise disciplined students to get scholarships.
There's also a trap that schools can get into where they have a magic season or two - get their ball team high up in the NCAA tournament - and that sets the expectation for future seasons. So, the fluke becomes an excuse to massively dump cash into the athletics program trying to recapture the dream.
The big draw of athletics, in the financial sense, is that donors love them. There's nothing like a winning season to boost donations to scholarships and campaigns across the board. Again, this can backfire if donors get expectations that the school cannot afford to match.
So we may even be better off with meritocracy + letting the rich in if they full price. It is still unfair (but no more so then letting athletes in who don't have the credentials) but at least it avoids the collateral harms that come from sports.
Is there anyway would could just cede Arizona back to Mexico at this point?
His repugnant ideas seem more apt coming from a 17th century advocate of Imperialism than any contemporary human being.
I think I can get with you on this idea, SKFM.
IIRC, that's actually how Harvard works.
Harvard gets enough in donations every year that they could give every student a full ride but they don't because students will pay. Now, we can have a debate about whether poor people have a good shot at getting into Harvard or not and I'm sure that not every university (surely not most public universities) have that kind of revenue raising power, but the state of need based aid is atrocious in the American higher education field.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Harvard isn't interested in whether students have "skin in the game" or whatever. Harvard would like to charge everybody tuition; they'd just rather foot the bill to get the students they really want than lose them to some other school. That's wonderful for a private or research institution that targets the most elite applicants; public universities have a different mission, for which that model makes less sense.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Hmm, that's true.
Though I think that more need based aid is important, especially on the public university stage. Especially since I have never seen a need based scholarship or grant that can't be taken away if you drop below a measly 2.0 GPA.
Are those athletic education grants and scholarships?
No, they are scholarships based on financial need and academic success. They are grants that help fund things such as research in a ton of different areas.
It also helps pay to maintain the working nuclear reactor in the engineering department
Edit: most of the funding for a lot of that does come from donations, but the athletic department here puts money back into the school itself and not just the athletic department. Most, if not all, big ten schools do this. They use athletics to fund the school to help keep tuition down
The Ivy business model is not infinitely scalable. It's entirely based around exclusive access, small student populations and wealthy donors.
Wait, so Scott Walker has nukes? Can we invade Wisconsin to bring them democracy?
I agree with you, Phil, but I think it might be a good place to start looking, especially for the bigger, more affluent schools.
What public higher education, and I'd say education in general needs, is more taxpayer support in general. But it is a messy problem and there's no magic bullet.
You'll be treated as liberators.
That one crazy dude that thinks Medieval serfdom was a good idea. Can't remember his forum name and if I go back to try and find it I'll have to rage a few minutes just from glancing at his stupid fucking posts.
Well, while it might not be the best idea, there are upsides:
1. It saves schools money which they can put towards giving more need based scholarships.
2. If someone is not willing to take on $16k in debt, then it may not be worth expending the resources (limited class seats, scholarship money, state subsidies that support the school) to bring them into the system.
3. Having at least some debt may incentive the (admittedly rare) people who get a degree for the hell of it but are not motivated to work if their parents will support them to actually get jobs.
1. Yeah, like that's going to happen.
2. The ability to take on $16k in debt (or, more accurately, pay $2K a year in cash or take out a private loan and getting fucked for a much larger amount of debt) has absolutely nothing to do with how worthy a student is. If this was an attempt to keep dumb people out of Arizona state schools, they wouldn't cap merit based scholarship exemptions from this "skin in the game" dipshittery at 5%.
3. You really think there are a sizable number of college graduates who look at their student debt and go "Eh, no need to get a job"?
The Nomadic Circle.
His views are special. They honestly can't even be considered "conservative" or "right wing" in any traditional sense. They're literally just out there.
Traditional sense was the wrong choice of words. I meant that his views can't be considered right-wing in the conventional sense.
Because it's a thing you can more easily distinguish yourself in when your situation sucks. Like, an A at the high school I went to (in suburban Ann Arbor) where there's a lot of funding and so really good teachers versus an A in inner city Detroit where they don't have the same resources are valued differently. But touchdowns are touchdowns, you know*?
In terms of access, class based affirmative action has always made sense to me.
Of course, ideally, higher education would cost what it did when my grandparents went to Michigan, $65/semester, including football tickets. That's ~600 dollars now. Now that will get you... season football tickets, and like a week of school.
Or the Ohio State game.
*This is not actually strictly true. Touchdowns in Florida, Texas, California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are worth more.
1. Whether or not it happens in practice, it is not a bad idea in theory. Full rides are probably generally more than what is needed to invent people to go to college.
2. It is not a matter of worthiness. It is about not wasting our money on services for someone who will not really appreciate it. $2,000 per semester is really a pretty nominal amount, and I wonder if expending public resources on someone who would go to school for $0 but not for $16k makes sense.
3. I don't think there are many, but to the extent they are out there, it might keep them from going. I will readily admit this is a weak argument.
Exactly. Athletic scholarships are about improving college sports teams, not making it easier for middling students to get an education. If they are supposed to help students without great grades get an education then they do an awful job at it, since the criteria for selecting recipients is literally as irrelevant to that goal as giving scholarships to people based on weight, or by choosing names from a hat.
Why not standardized testing instead, then? It doesn't have to be comprehensive or compulsory; it just has to be standardized. At least that is directly relevant to college-level academics.
You'll forgive me if I am skeptical that, given the financial incentives, athletic scholarships are strictly in the unbiased interest of students, and not, say, the football department. It strikes me as one of those schemes that largely benefit an entrenched interest but everyone left-wing is supposed to cheer for it nonetheless because a sliver goes to disadvantaged people.
I loathe standardized testing, for one. And inevitably that benefits the wealthy again, as they can afford ACT test prep courses, for example.
And obviously athletic scholarships (well, football and basketball scholarships) are all about the sports. But there are nice side effects. The nice thing is that they're frequently independent from the main university financially. And they generate all kinds of boosts in terms of application/funding boosts as a corollary. For example, Butler University recently made the Final Four in men's basketball and had applications skyrocket. Which... is dumb. But true!
Are the wealthy correspondingly unable to purchase personal training, or provide donations for their local team, etc.? This seems implausible.
You have already noted that athletic performance is not everywhere equally measured to begin with, and the competitive nature of it means that this is unlikely to change anyway.
Most of it is talent. Especially where things aren't equipment dependent (soccer, basketball, etc).
I don't think it is, in aggregate, but for individual schools and individual people it can be. As a slightly more rough example at the moment: because of Joe Paterno, Penn State went from a middle of nowhere land grant university to a highly regarded research institution.
But I went to a major athletic power, so I am slightly biased.
This is mostly because of population. If you excel in a highly populated area like Texas, you can trust that result more than someone who excels in say, Vermont.
Are you seriously agreeing that there's no aggregate benefit to the educational system? So it is really just university-affiliated sports teams holding higher education hostage to get talent in zero-sum competition with other sports teams?
Look, I'm aware that the present model of hitching higher education to a somewhat distinct field of human activity, namely research, is already a little disjointed to begin with. Your country funds primary education via state-enforced monopolies on lotteries; there's no practical reason against funding tertiary education via state-backed monopolies on profitable sports. But I think it is readily seen that it is not an egalitarian improvement and it is quite regressive, actually.