[WBB fan]

The transfer rate for public 4 year universities in California is 7%.  That means that 7% of the freshmen who enter that university transfer to another university within 6 years.  Naturally, for community colleges the number is very different.  It is also a little higher for private universities since there are a number of students who leave for financial reasons to go to a cheaper public institution.  But in general, transferring between 4 year universities is a fairly infrequent occurrence for "normal" students.

Now compare that with what we have seen recently in WBB.  Teams like Ole Miss and LSU were predominately transfer students.  It is a naked and obvious perversion of the stability necessary for sound academic development.  For anyone who hasn't noticed, universities have differing academic programs with differing requirements.  There is no such thing as a truly seamless transfer--except perhaps for some pre-arranged JC to 4 year pathways.  Otherwise it is likely that something is directly lost, that some requirements that were met are no longer met, that some units that were awarded don't count for the same things, etc.  Compounding this is the problem of articulation--when transferring it is likely that the sending and receiving institutions do not have a formal "articulation agreement" that specifies what the equivalent courses are at each institution.  This requires transcript evaluators to look at the courses taken and made decisions about what the equivalencies are.  This process at my own university can take nearly a full semester--meaning that for that semester a student is taking courses "blind" and not knowing if they are the right courses or not to count most efficiently toward the degree.

And even in the rare case that none of that is true, then at least the advantage of developing a long-term relationship with the faculty, who may be helpful to the student as advisors, mentors, writers of letters of rec etc. gets trashed.  Similarly the social development and maturation that takes place as students develop friendships with other students across campus is lessened, causing even more of a tendency for student-athletes to form cliques among themselves and not interact much with all those students who they will spend a year or maybe two with.

What is best for academic development is being relegated to last place in order to facilitate a sports enterprise that looks increasing professional.

Thanks for this, so well expressed.

[WBB fan]

The transfer rate for public 4 year universities in California is 7%.  That means that 7% of the freshmen who enter that university transfer to another university within 6 years.  Naturally, for community colleges the number is very different.  It is also a little higher for private universities since there are a number of students who leave for financial reasons to go to a cheaper public institution.  But in general, transferring between 4 year universities is a fairly infrequent occurrence for "normal" students.

Now compare that with what we have seen recently in WBB.  Teams like Ole Miss and LSU were predominately transfer students.  It is a naked and obvious perversion of the stability necessary for sound academic development.  For anyone who hasn't noticed, universities have differing academic programs with differing requirements.  There is no such thing as a truly seamless transfer--except perhaps for some pre-arranged JC to 4 year pathways.  Otherwise it is likely that something is directly lost, that some requirements that were met are no longer met, that some units that were awarded don't count for the same things, etc.  Compounding this is the problem of articulation--when transferring it is likely that the sending and receiving institutions do not have a formal "articulation agreement" that specifies what the equivalent courses are at each institution.  This requires transcript evaluators to look at the courses taken and made decisions about what the equivalencies are.  This process at my own university can take nearly a full semester--meaning that for that semester a student is taking courses "blind" and not knowing if they are the right courses or not to count most efficiently toward the degree.

And even in the rare case that none of that is true, then at least the advantage of developing a long-term relationship with the faculty, who may be helpful to the student as advisors, mentors, writers of letters of rec etc. gets trashed.  Similarly the social development and maturation that takes place as students develop friendships with other students across campus is lessened, causing even more of a tendency for student-athletes to form cliques among themselves and not interact much with all those students who they will spend a year or maybe two with.

What is best for academic development is being relegated to last place in order to facilitate a sports enterprise that looks increasing professional.

Thanks for this, so well expressed.