On multiple occasions, I've seen people imply that it's unfair to diss the SEC for the education it provides its student athletes.
I would have thought people would already have been familiar with statistics like these, but out of the Power 5 conferences, the SEC ranks dead last in graduation success rate. Out of the 14 schools, only 3 schools graduate at least 60 percent of the freshman class on-time.
http://www.educatedquest.com/smartest-po...onference/
Although, before we get too cocky, the Pac-12 was second-to-last, with only 4 out of 12 schools graduating 60%+ on-time.
For football programs, Stanford was #1 in gsr. Clemson was #2 while winning the cfp!
http://time.com/4606863/college-football...academics/
Then there is the question of the quality of the education the students are receiving. It's hard to come up with a measure, but I was curious about Nobel prize affiliations. Scanning the list of Nobel prizes, I think the Pac-12 would come first, although I'm not aware of any particular ranking (I didn't add up every conference, but my guess would be the Big 10 would come in second, the ACC third). Every single Pac-12 school has had at least one Nobel prize winner affiliated with them, with of course Berkeley and Stanford among the top in the world. Only 3 SEC schools (that I could find) have ever had a Nobel laureate affiliated with them -- ever (Vanderbilt, Florida and Tennessee). And even Vanderbilt has fewer than USC, Colorado, Washington, UCLA, Stanford and Berkeley, which is to say, even the top academic school in the SEC would fall in the bottom half of the Pac-12 in terms of Nobel prize affiliations. ::)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_No..._-_50th.29
I would have thought people would already have been familiar with statistics like these, but out of the Power 5 conferences, the SEC ranks dead last in graduation success rate. Out of the 14 schools, only 3 schools graduate at least 60 percent of the freshman class on-time.
http://www.educatedquest.com/smartest-po...onference/
Although, before we get too cocky, the Pac-12 was second-to-last, with only 4 out of 12 schools graduating 60%+ on-time.
For football programs, Stanford was #1 in gsr. Clemson was #2 while winning the cfp!
http://time.com/4606863/college-football...academics/
Then there is the question of the quality of the education the students are receiving. It's hard to come up with a measure, but I was curious about Nobel prize affiliations. Scanning the list of Nobel prizes, I think the Pac-12 would come first, although I'm not aware of any particular ranking (I didn't add up every conference, but my guess would be the Big 10 would come in second, the ACC third). Every single Pac-12 school has had at least one Nobel prize winner affiliated with them, with of course Berkeley and Stanford among the top in the world. Only 3 SEC schools (that I could find) have ever had a Nobel laureate affiliated with them -- ever (Vanderbilt, Florida and Tennessee). And even Vanderbilt has fewer than USC, Colorado, Washington, UCLA, Stanford and Berkeley, which is to say, even the top academic school in the SEC would fall in the bottom half of the Pac-12 in terms of Nobel prize affiliations. ::)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_No..._-_50th.29