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It's never going to happen, but - yvonne - 05-23-2012

The Knight Commission is proposing that the BCS distribute revenue based on graduation rates.

http://collegefootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/04/26/knight-commission-wants-grad-rates-to-affect-bcs-revenue-distribution/

Here's the letter the commission sent to the presidents and commissioners:
http://www.knightcommission.org/images/pdfs/covermemo.4.20.12.pdf

Larry Scott called the proposal "noble."  ::)

Re: It's never happen, but - Farm93 - 05-23-2012

No thanks!

I would love for graduation rates to increase, but this type of incentive is certain to create problems.

Every SEC team would create very specific sports management fields that are destined to become the domain of the athletes unlikely to graduate in traditional departments.  Throughout the region people would know that those majors are just for athletes, so that the schools could get their money.

That might be acceptable to some, but then players would be told they MUST major in those special majors.  Before you know it almost every D-1 athlete would be forced to sports majors.  I would guess some schools could get creative and even design majors around "Weightlifting" or "Sports Nutrition" and then develop graduation requirements into the majors as a way to get the athletes more time with local experts in the disclipline, conveniently the coaches and trainers on staff.

Student-athletes interested in pre-med or law or engineering would be told to forget it.  The pressure to comply to the wishes of the AD would be enormous, and any student that failed would serve as a catalyst to drive that AD to crazier schemes for future athletes.
 
I can laugh at the idea of UCB losing their share of BCS TV money, but I suspect the real victims would be kids that actually wanted to play D-1 sports to enable them to get access to a quality education in a challenging field.

Re: It's never happen, but - fullmetal - 05-23-2012

You could legislate gimmick majors out though.  And if you involved university faculty, perhaps in an anonymous manner, some change could come about.

Re: It's never happen, but - CowboyIndian - 05-23-2012

(05-23-2012, 12:25 PM)Farm93 link Wrote:Every SEC team would create very specific sports management fields that are destined to become the domain of the athletes unlikely to graduate in traditional departments.  Throughout the region people would know that those majors are just for athletes, so that the schools could get their money.

That might be acceptable to some, but then players would be told they MUST major in those special majors.  Before you know it almost every D-1 athlete would be forced to sports majors.  I would guess some schools could get creative and even design majors around "Weightlifting" or "Sports Nutrition" and then develop graduation requirements into the majors as a way to get the athletes more time with local experts in the disclipline, conveniently the coaches and trainers on staff.

Student-athletes interested in pre-med or law or engineering would be told to forget it.  The pressure to comply to the wishes of the AD would be enormous, and any student that failed would serve as a catalyst to drive that AD to crazier schemes for future athletes.

As opposed to your scenario above, what do you imagine is happening now....and has been happening for a while?

Re: It's never happen, but - Roberton3 - 05-23-2012

(05-23-2012, 01:28 PM)fullmetal link Wrote:You could legislate gimmick majors out though.  And if you involved university faculty, perhaps in an anonymous manner, some change could come about.

It would have to be anonymous.  University administrators have a lot of ways to put pressure on faculty (even tenured faculty), and I'm sure at most schools they wouldn't hesitate to do so if substantial sums of money were on the line.

PE Majors - jacketree - 05-23-2012

Remarkably few schools still offer accredited PE majors. Just 17, but some of the big boys:

Colorado School of Mines
LSU
Marietta College (OH)
MUS&T (the artist formerly known as Missouri-Rolla)
Montana Tech
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Penn State
aTm
Texas Tech
Texas
Kansas
Tulsa
Alaska Fairbanks
ULL (Ragin' Cajuns)
Oklahoma
Wyoming
West Virginia (obviously Oliver Luck doesn't want to leave the comfort of crip majors)

Tying revenue to grad rates is one of the worst ideas ever. Unless one wants to see the frequency of toilet paper adorned with fancy Latin phrases issued to revenue athletes skyrocket.  As Bobby Bowden once said when asked how many of his athletes earned degrees: 'All of them that wanted to.'  (Words to that effect anyway.)




Re: It's never happen, but - Hurlburt88 - 05-23-2012

The law of unintended consequences makes this a minefield.  If schools don't care now about producing quality graduates, we can not legislate that they do. 

Re: It's never happen, but - Farm93 - 05-23-2012

(05-23-2012, 01:30 PM)CowboyIndian link Wrote:As opposed to your scenario above, what do you imagine is happening now....and has been happening for a while?

I decided against comparing to the state today, but the difference would be immense.

Each university has extensive fixed costs related to supporting athletics.  Let's pick UCB.  They "need" that $30 million per year in TV money to even come close to balancing their AD budget.  Imagine, mid way through the fiscal year some group of NCAA analysts declares that UCB will get nothing from TV!!!

The costs for sports would be fixed and not easily cut, so the cuts would come from university-wide variable cost categories and/or those line items with no hope of producing revenue.  Bye-bye graduate research stipends or staff salary increases.  The pressure on the system would be impossible.  Everyone would know that the athletes must graduate or the university might be forced to take money immediately from relative innocents.  Not slow cuts over time, but massive hurtful immediate cuts.  Those that think the cuts would come from the AD budget are NUTS.  If anything, those schools that get revenue cut once would double down and "improve" their graduation rate gimmicks.

Today professors will complain if too many students are clearly not qualified for a school.  Most schools stay true to their mission and give athletes low grades if they are not in class.  Today some professors want to be nice to the ADs.  And today some kids don't care and take PE, bowling, or Parks & Rec or whatever is available to keep them eligible.  In this new world the systems would demand that EVERY athlete take classes where the professors understand the deal.  Like optional workouts these optional majors would be near mandatory in too many schools.

No longer driven by some noble quest to improve grad rates, the system would be driven by a fear of losing money needed to keep the budget sound.

Sure, some kids would elect to attend schools that keep the athletes in the student mix, but far too many would elect the easiest path.  And with the dollars needed to cover fixed costs tied directly to athlete graduation too many schools would lose all ability to stop the insanity.

Grad rates would improve, but I doubt the schools would actually do a better job at educating athletes.  In fact, my guess is that many schools would create new programs that would actually hurt athlete education.  And the perception in the real world would become that all athletes get to graduate only because the schools needed/wanted the TV money.

Re: It's never going to happen, but - yvonne - 05-23-2012

The proposal is "noble." It's also naive. There's just no way that conference commissioners and presidents would agree to distribute money in any way other than equally among conference members, with the higher drawing conferences getting a bigger share of the revenue, or with the higher drawing individual schools drawing a larger share. It's also naive in that as people have mentioned, a requirement for a specific minimum graduation rates will result in schools doing whatever is necessary to achieve those rates.

Re: It's never happen, but - stan01 - 05-23-2012

(05-23-2012, 01:37 PM)garvin link Wrote:How many schools still offer a PE major?

I still remember chanting "Family Studies" with my fellow Sixth Man peeps whenever Arizona visited Maples. 

Re: It's never going to happen, but - fullmetal - 05-23-2012

"Interdisciplinary studies" from Michigan sticks in my head.  So do the recreation, pre-law studies, pre-med studies, and general studies majors.

Re: It's never going to happen, but - Leftcoast - 05-24-2012

Pre-Med??????

Re: It's never going to happen, but - jacketree - 05-24-2012

[Image: animalht_l.jpg]
"Pre-law, pre-med; what's the difference?"