College athletics have always been a big thing in the US. At Penn State for example when you walk into the book store you’re not first confronted with walls of books, but spirit wear including the Penn State logo displayed above every sport the school offers. Season football tickets at Penn State sell out within the first ten minutes, and football games bring in over a hundred thousand people. Are the large concentrations of college athletics in US universities diminishing the quality of education?
There are many benefits to college athletes that should be addressed. Schools gain recognition and reputations from their athletic teams. For many schools the majority of their funding comes from out of state or international students paying large amounts of tuition. School athletics can draw people to schools because of allegiance to their teams. Athletic scholarships offered by schools can also give athletes the opportunity to attend schools that previously they would be unable to attend because of financial burdens. Highly competitive schools also allow student athletes that may have been unable to be admitted without athletics. This can give students an opportunity to receive an Ivy League education that previously might have appeared out of reach. Sports can help teach athletes the importance of working together and taking direction, which are important skills for if they eventually join the workforce.
One major downfall to the integration of college athletics in schools is that it can give larger schools a greater advantage in recruitment of students to their schools. Many people enjoy watching collegiate sports and are drawn to schools based on the largeness of their sports programs. Many big schools have more resources that they can use to recruit athletes to their programs which can result in more success from their football teams. This divide is even more apparent with new trends in legislation allowing the compensation of college athletes. Schools with bigger sports programs get more media coverage then smaller schools, which can lead more schools to get paid from outside sources. There are however still issues with college eligibility from the NCAA, which currently states that paid athletes would no longer be eligible for NCAA competition.
Other issues are associated with the quality of education of these universities. Many athletes play in college until they are able to compete professionally. Some universities will create curriculum so that students athletes can easily whiz by in the classes. UNC has even been convicted of creating classes that only exist on transcripts to help college athletes maintain the GPA’s they need to maintain eligibility. Students athletes also must continuously miss classes because of vigorous travel schedules necessary for competition. This results in diminished quality of student athletes’ education. This means that students on scholarships given the opportunity to go to college may not even be receiving the quality education that they deserve.
This debate could continue to ensue, but these are the major concerns I have regarding this issue. For more information feel free to check out these articles from The Washington Post, The Atlantic and Seattle PI.
I definitely think this is an interesting topic because I have many friends from high school who chose where they attended school based off of where they could play sports. I think about my one friend who is currently attending Tufts because of a lacrosse scholarship– a school that would have probably been both financially and academically unattainable without the sport, and I think that collegiate sports really opened up a great opportunity for him. However, I also see the downsides to this as well, where schools like UNC are filling up admissions spots with players who do not take the schooling side of things seriously at all. There are definitely many pros and cons to the entire situation!
I had a classmate in fall semester who was in a sports scholarship, and he had to miss a lot of classes because of practice. What is even worse is that he was in Schreyer, so he was in additional pressure to keep up with both the GPA requirements of Schreyer and for keeping his sports scholarships and being in sports. It makes me wonder how student athletes, especially in Penn State, keep up with the pressures of both academics and atheletics. On a final note, it makes me ask the question of whether sports here should be cut back at all. I still haven’t found the answer to that yet to this day.
This post was really enlightening! First of all, I did not even think of the fact that the first thing you see when you walk into the bookstore is football merchandise. It’s called a bookstore for a reason! Student athletics is a very interesting topic, and each time I read about it, I hope to feel more strongly for one side, but I never do! It is such a complicated topic. One part of me sees it as unfair, but another part of me understands that this may be the only way for some students to reach their dream of eventually playing professionally. Either way, I think this post really highlighted both sides and gave a deeper look into the whole situation.