<p>There is a list published every year of the graduation rates for all football bowl teams. Some do well and some are hideous. It’s hard to tell how useful the data is because we can’t tell if the classwork is useful or even genuine and thus whether the degree is more than a piece of paper. </p>
<p>That said, I find the argument that athletes in scholarship programs graduate more - by a little - to be uninformative. We’re talking about athletes who don’t pay and who have massive academic support. If they don’t graduate, that should be the story. Instead, it appears that even with the huge investment, they barely do better than average even without financial pressure and even with huge investments in tutoring, academic lounges, etc. A system that can’t do better than that is not one to be proud of.</p>