<p>Quite a few of you are committing pretty egregious logical fallacies. I don’t think anyone here is CLAIMING that having D-1 sports will automatically cause better students to apply.</p>
<p>D-1 sports = an investment. D-1 sports is a hot commodity that many schools have when recruiting/attracting students. If you had a lump sum of money to spend, and all schools cost, the same, you maximize your personal benefit by finding your optimal mix of academic + non-academic factors–for many prospective undergrads, sports matter. This is not a blanket statement that all students prefer this, but this is one of the possible factors why there seems to be a qualitative difference between the type of student that goes to UCSD vs., let’s say, UCLA or UNC. </p>
<p>Empirical economic evidence actually shows that D-1 sports are HUGE revenue generators for schools. When your team is good, students, families, alumni, non-affiliated parties buy merchandise and pay admission to watch games. There are also increased levels of media exposure, which at least draw some limelight to people who may know nothing about various colleges. The most important aspect, however, is the effect D-1 sports seem to have on alumni donation to the school’s endowment. There is enough evidence to suggest that people want their alma mater to win at sports, so that they can protect some sanctity of their school’s reputation. This inference is up to debate, but enough data show that it’s likely. </p>
<p>Moneys generated from increased sales, media exposure, alumni contributions, etc., all trickle down to the university to pad their endowment–money used by the university to increase spending and investment in research, facilities, administrative support, etc. The former is definitely the biggest factor. Having money to provide the best possible research facilities and environment to attract the best faculty has huge effects on productivity and prestige. I’m sure there’s an overwhelming population unaware of this in UCSD, but we employ quite a large handful of Nobel laureates, Macarthur fellows, and a very impressive amount of members in the NAS. We attract some of the best researchers from around the world and they’re what make our (graduate) departments famous and world-renowned. Granted, this doesn’t always translate to better teaching since I’d argue that teaching and researching are two independent skills, and being good at one doesn’t imply being good at the other, and vice-versa.</p>
<p>Regardless, having the best faculty will then draw the best students to apply. Furthermore, having a larger endowment means more available funds to offer scholarships to recruit other high-demand students. All these are indirect and direct contributors as to why sports ==> higher rankings / better students. There are transaction and lag variables associated, but this logic is what drives other universities to ensure their teams are still atop NCAA rankings.</p>