You’re basically putting forth a theory (that even the most academically qualified colleges have sports for the money it provides) and then asking that posters prove it for you.
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It wasn’t just in 2016-17 that Purdue athletics was profitable. An example budget for 2019-20 (COVID ends basketball season prematurely) is at Purdue Athletics falls short of projected 2019-2020 budget. . Note that nearly half of their $111M income came from “Big Ten Conference Distributions.” It helps to be in a conference with TV deals and other sources that will bring in >$50M operating income to an unranked team having a mediocre year.
This also relates to highest salaried person at colleges in competitive athletic conferences usually either being the football coach or the men’s basketball coach, rather than the president or someone on the academic side. If the coach can improve the team’s success, the revenue increase and other benefits will offset paying extra millions in salary.
This is a forum about colleges.
Yes, I posed this theory as a thread to gauge whether anyone knew.
I have no idea whether there is any validity to it.
No one has said anything in support of it.
If it is true, there are related undercurrents related to how universities operate and how athletes should be valued.
Here’s my answer:
You’re never going to come up with a general, unified theory of dollars spent to dollars gained that includes both Purdue and Wesleyan.
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They are getting the money they need. If they don’t get it, they drop a sport. A few of the mid-tier schools have dropped men’s swimming and a few track (or winter track). Some schools have dropped German or an art program too because there just aren’t enough kids interested in majoring in German, or they want to make room for a bigger CS lab, or add another music program.
Some conferences also have rules about sports the schools must keep to stay in the conference. I know Buffalo has a football team because it is required, but dropped to club hockey (two teams) because that’s what the students wanted. No scholarships and often club teams have to pay a lot of their own expenses.
Schools adjust to their needs. My daughter’s college added football because the president really wanted football. After about 6 years, and a new president, they dropped it. They’ve had to adjust a lot of their other sports programs to keep the balance of m:f teams. I don’t think any team breaks even or makes money at her school. As I said earlier, having the teams brings students to the school, especially female students.
The school also sponsors many academic teams like engineering challenges (Concrete Canoe, vehicle building challenges, CS competitions) that also do not break even. The faculty and students formed an orchestra - total money suck.
Colleges aren’t money making businesses.
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It seems to me this whole thread is based on the supposition of some parents that somehow these less-deserving athletes are preventing their special snowflake unathletic kids from getting in to their dream school. Harvard is private institution so if they decide they want some squash player instead of the 32nd first violin player then that is their choice. If you don’t like it apply someplace else.
Sports have been a defining aspect of American colleges since the mid-19th century and always will be.
I’m so tired of this “oh I hate/don’t follow sports” attitude among my fellow 1%s. It doesn’t make cool-- it is sad and pathetic.
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The problem is the favoritism that elite colleges demonstrate for athletes encourages high schools to promote, support, and academically reward athletes above others to gain elite admissions. This is particularly true at prep schools where squash, fencing, sailing, golf, and rowing exist. Prowess in such sports is largely gained through private coaching throughout youth, not developed by the schools, and then honed through club competition.
This is not about who gets the seat at Harvard, but when non-athletes are being bumped from AP classes or denied entry to limited research projects because athletes’ transcripts need to be cultivated for HYPS+, it becomes about access to better teachers and courses…in short, education. It can become a back-ended process that effects more than just college admissions.
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@BWM-- quite the set of claims. Where is your evidence?
Again so what-- a private school decides they value a particular activity and rewards it-- if you don’t like it pick a different school.
Also the world doesn’t end if kid can’t attend HYPS
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I didn’t say this was about gaining a seat at an Ivy. I am talking about how prioritizing athletics can influence academic opportunities prior to college.
The local private and public schools near me each had eight athletes alone accepted to Penn ED one year, so this is not just a prep school phenomenon. Students arriving in eleventh grade from less demanding schools to boost varsity sports for two years were given priority placement in courses over academically qualified kids who had attended these schools since kindergarten. I am not giving places or names, but check out the schools that are boasting elite college acceptances and you’ll find most are represented in the rosters of the aforementioned sports.
If you haven’t experienced that or don’t have a problem with it, then that works for you. However, just as schools are free to value what they like, people are free to discuss their opinions. I agree that athletes add needed diversity. I just think the balance is off.
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I have never heard of this happening and I went to a very large (4000 student), top public school where about 100 students are recruited every year and almost every graduate goes to a 4 year college. Many students go to Ivies and Stanford, including athletes Those taking AP Calc are there because that’s the appropriate math class for them and if they want to get into MIT they need AP Calc.
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I am glad you haven’t experienced it.
Yes, Purdue and Wesleyan are dissimilar schools and nearly impossible to compare athletically.
I started this thread attempting to discuss a more homogenous category- top academic national universities - and I used the USWNR top 20 list as an example.
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I am the OP and my kid is a committed, athletic recruit. I don’t hate athletics, especially since my kid benefited from the process. We will be watching my kid play in college next year… Many teammates and local kids in our area committed to both D1 and D3 schools, so I think I understand the recruiting process for our sport much better than most people…
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So do you think your child bumped some more academic, more deserving students from places in his high school and now college? Did he not earn his grades, scores and work hard at his sport?
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What’s the purpose of asking this question?
You know it’s impossible to define “deserving” when admissions decision are based on a holistic analysis. Do you consider your kid deserving when he/she was admitted to his/her college?
I think that you misconstrues what @twoinanddone was asking. They were asking, essentially, whether it bothers you that your child was, possibly, accepted because of their athletic ability, rather than because of their academic achievements.
@twoinanddone I think that you, in turn, misconstrues what @BUMD was trying to say. They are entirely happy with how their kid was accepted, they are simply trying to understand why sports are so important to the colleges themselves.
That is because these schools care more about making claims that “X% of our students matriculate to an Ivy”, than about making sure that their students get a good education.
This is an issue for many prep schools, because they are trying to maintain enrollment, especially from populations which can pay full tuition. So one of their selling points is their high Ivy League (or other “elite”) placement.
The public schools which are participating in this game are usually schools which serve similar high income communities. They are competing for wealthy students with prep schools. So they feel the need to have the same selling points as the prep schools. I wrote about this a while back, and mentioned how it is mostly the parents who are driving this insanity.
If so many parents in these communities weren’t obsessed with getting their kid into a “prestigious” college, it would allow high schools to focus more on education and less on increasing the percent of matriculations to these college.
The high school which our kid attended did not pander to this obsession (and the prevailing culture in the schools district was very much against this idea), and so, we did not have kids on accelerated tracks being bumped off by other kids who were good athletes.
This was more because of the parents than because of the school. The school stopped posting college matriculations in 2015 at the request of the parents, and the assorted parents groups (like the parent FB page) would put a stopper on anybody who tried to play colleges admission prestige games.
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This is interesting. What features of this community made it different from those that are obsessed with Ivy League/elite school placement?
I agree with your assessment. As you write, the lure of prioritized entry to elite colleges and universities via niche sports has resulted in the perception that the high schools feeding such programs offer superior academics and enrichment.
Parents who know how such reputations are actually obtained seek these schools out for their athletic pipelines. Those who are unaware will find out over the course of time. Whether it is then possible to remove their children or move depends on when that discovery is made and personal circumstances.
I am also interested in how parent groups at your school combatted this situation. Was your school public or independent?
The 2022 USNews T20 National Universities ranking consists of exactly one member of the SEC (Vanderbilt), two members of the Pac-12 (UCLA and Stanford) and one member of The Big Ten (Northwestern). I would start with those four. I’m pretty sure their annual reports are available online.
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It is a very progressive community, which also takes education very seriously, and chasing prestige doesn’t really fit in with the self image of the community. The high school is pretty good, diverse, and serious about education. Of course, they aren’t as progressive as they think they are, but nobody ever is…
It’s a public high school, a decent one, and pretty diverse. Some famous alumni, some headlines, and a TV miniseries which caused a lot of soul searching and self reflection (which likely won’t lead to anywhere because of inertia).
See above for the explanation.
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