Athletic vs. Academic Scholarship Priority

With the costs of attending college skyrocketing, high school graduates are now more competitive than ever before when vying for scholarships. Graduation rates reached an all-time high in the U.S. last year of eighty-three point two percent. Last fall, somewhere around twenty and a half million students attended American colleges and universities, five point two million more than in the fall semester of 2000. More and more students every year are pushing further into higher education, which has made the competition for admission and financial aid significantly more intense. The average cost for tuition and fees at a four year public university for an in state student 2016-17 was $9,648, well over double the average cost of $3,508 in 2000-01. So there’s no surprise that aspiring students in higher education are yearning for scholarships and financial assistance from these colleges and universities.

With that being said, it’s a shame to see bright students and honor graduates unable to afford the higher education they need to meet their full potential. With the amount of money colleges and universities take in every year from having the highest cost of attendance yet, why aren’t there enough scholarships to go around for those students with impeccable grade point averages, reaching the top of their graduating class? Well, while one high schools valedictorian is denied on their partial scholarship application, another high school’s star athlete with subpar grades and SAT scores is offered a full ride scholarship for an education they won’t merit. Across the United States, an estimated annual three billion dollars is awarded in scholarships to student athletes, which is not allocated to recruits based on academic performance, but by athletic achievement and prospect. This is just outrageous, and seems to appear almost as if higher education institutions care more about their ranking in sports than about actual education. Under no circumstances should an academically mediocre student-athlete receive priority over accomplished and brilliant students for paid tuition costs. It’s unfathomable how we treat students who achieve in the classroom compared to the students who achieve in sports.
School is a place for academics, so why are so many schools giving money to athletes first and academically achieved students second? From the point of view of many others, it’s believed that student-athletes deserve their funding because, at many division one and two schools, popular sports like football or basketball make a hefty amount of money for the school. However, that’s not exactly put to great use seeming as those funds will majorly go right back into the football programs.
Student athletes at division one and two schools often have special dining halls, tutoring and academic assistants, health care services, and leisure areas (such as “player’s lounges” and game rooms) that are not available to regular full-time students. Those athletic perks also carry a fairly large price tag for the university, and not to mention paying the yearly salaries of the special tutors, physical therapists, etcetera. On top of all that, we have not even discussed the unnecessary expenditures large division one football teams seem to be notorious for. A perfect example is the University of Alabama. Crimson Tide football has a locker room facility worth right around $100 million, including a hydrotherapy room with a forty foot long waterfall. Another luxurious touch, the University of Texas at Austin installed all new high-tech lockers, each encompassing a forty-three inch television monitor, for Longhorn football this past spring costing about $10,500 a piece. Though college sports might be a cash cow, they are also quite unbelievably costly. The argument that student-athletes are more deserving of scholarships because sports bring money to the school is null and void because that money does not go to research, or to teacher’s salaries, or to libraries, or to any academic department. The money they make goes right back into the athletics programs, pampering and indulging these kids who get to attend college for free and live like royalty with minimal academic responsibility.
I do not believe that is fair to distribute athletic and academic scholarships equally, either. My reasoning for this is because college is a place that is supposed to prepare you for a career, and sports, much more often than not, are not at all reliable for careers. In 2016, 1.1% of NCAA Men’s Basketball participants were drafted into the NBA, and only 0.9% of Women’s Basketball participants were drafted into the WNBA. In the same year, 1.5% of NCAA Football players made it to the NFL. No matter which school you choose, hardly a handful of college athletes will ever make careers out of their sport. It’s unreasonable to believe that every scholarship athlete is there because they’re going to be professional someday. 
 Going further, in almost every normal career path, intellectualism will consistently trump athleticism. Once you earn a degree and get a job in absolutely any industry other than professional sports, it will almost never make you a more valuable employee to be more athletic than intelligent. Employers and corporations aren’t offering positions to people who are fast and strong, but are instead often looking for people with critical thinking and problem solving skills. As simple and realistic as that sounds, to someone who has been rewarded for years based off of their athletic abilities, it can still be a shock when they get into the real working world. That’s why I am convinced we have got to start showing college athletes that you are a student first and an athlete second. We must reward profitable skill sets besides athletics, in order to push students towards practical careers and pave better futures.
Lastly, in order to guarantee a better future for generations who have yet to come, it is profoundly important that we assure the best and brightest minds of our time have access to the education they need to go out and make a difference in the world. Today’s most crafty and brilliant students are tomorrow’s most influential leaders, activists, and innovators. They are the people who are going to bring change to the world and progress society in all the right directions. How could we justify taking a scholarship away from who may very well be our future president or a medical researcher who discovers the cure for cancer, just so we could give it to a wide receiver that had a less than two percent chance of reaching the NFL? Who would have made a greater impact with their free tuition? Accomplished students become accomplished lawyers, doctors, politicians, engineers, and so on. They prepare our future and they make history. They give back to their communities and inspire those who will live after them. It should be utmost priority that we educate them first, and worry about the athletics later.

 Concluding from any stance you may have on the argument, it cannot be justified to deny an education to a high achieving, distinguished student while also offering a full-ride scholarship to a mediocre or average student solely for the benefits of their athletic talents. Higher education institutions must prioritize distributing grants and scholarships amongst scholars rather than athletes. I am not arguing that athletes should not receive scholarships, but that scholarships should not be given for athletics. Student-athletes should be held to the same standard and earn their funding with academic achievement, just like any other student has to. No 4.0 student should ever come in second place to a 2.5 athlete.

Any chance you could edit your post…and put spaces between some paragraphs?

Also…do you have a question? That is unclear from your post.

Wow…wrong on some many things. Out of curiosity what colleges are you speaking of specifically?

Hi @moscott , while I’m not sure which colleges this person is speaking on. I’d like to know, what part do you feel is inaccurate? Because from my point of view, I have only read the truth about grades coming second to sports.

Interesting read.

I think it’s important to remember that kids are gifted in different ways. Some are great with their hands, some are skilled in athletics, and some excel at academics. Student athletes put incredible effort and time into perfecting their craft, much like academic-focused students do. I think it’s totally justified to give out athletic scholarships.

Yes, the rates of student athletes reaching the “big leagues” is small. The rates are sometimes sub 1%, as you said. However, the rates of kids going on to the “big leagues” of academia-PhD’s- are pretty low, too. If you look at data from the NSF (National Science Foundation), most top schools have institutional-yield ratios of students that go on to be PhDs that are pretty low. Stanford’s at 8%, Dartmouth is at 6%, UC Berkeley is at 5.9%.

Should Bryn Mawr offer aid for academic kids? Only 245 of the people that earned PhDs from 2002-2011 were from Bryn Mawr. Penn isn’t even in the top 50- a top 50 that ended with a yield rate of 5.5%.

How embarrassing. Perhaps they shouldn’t offer any of those unproductive kiddos any aid. They built the whole campus except for the sports fields for these fools, and maybe, maybe 5% (and in many cases, less) of them will go on to the “big leagues”.

Nah, I think the system is fine the way it is. Just because a student athlete has a low GPA does not mean that they’re any less deserving of merit aid (or an acceptance!) than a perfect-stat academic. People are gifted in different ways, and they deserve recognition whether that giftedness is best shown on the track or in a lab.

Full disclosure: I’m a rising senior with zero vested interest in sports and heavy involvement in academia.
Source: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/

@stacynicolex3 I have only read the truth about grades coming second to sports. What does that mean exactly?

@stacynicolex3 I would be interested in knowing more about what you meant as well.

I understand the hand outs given to athletes. They do, at least at some schools, get coddled, get expensive 1:1 tutoring, unavailable to others, have “gut” classes designed especially for them, special meal plans, etc. It is unfortunate, but I don’t see them taking money away from merit scholarships. Not buying it. Those Alum, who donate, are probably making donations to both athletic scholarships and to the school in general. Donations to school in general will not increase if athletic scholarships are discontinued. I have been asked to donate to these athletic scholarships and have always declined, but obviously, many people still do.

@moscott @newkidnewtrix In college, my personal experience is that athletes are rewarded more than the students with outstanding grades and the ones that try really hard in school. I agree that there are more talents than just being intelligent, but even then, athletes are put on a pedestal. They are absolutely treated better than the other students in my opinion. I’m not saying they shouldn’t get these scholarships, but other talents (academics, music, art) should be treated the same way as athletes. Especially in regards to scholarships.

I absolutely busted my ass in high school to get scholarships while my fellow students, athletes, slid by barely passing. I still didn’t get half of the amount of money that those students did to go to college.

Many of your ‘facts’ are wrong.

But so what? You don’t want to go to a school that awards more in athletic scholarships than in need/merit scholarships? You’re in luck because I don’t think there is ONE school in the US that does. Alabama offers much more in merit awards for grades and scores than it does to its athletes. You don’t want to go to a college that awards ANY athletic money? Still lucky because you can go to any D3 or Ivy league school or to a US service academy. No athletic scholarships at Brown or Amherst or Vassar or Navy.

My daughter is an athlete. She has an athletic scholarship but she has a bigger merit scholarship. No one is admitted to her school without the academic chops to be there. I know this is true because two recruits were not admitted to the school (not even to the non-STEM majors) and had to go elsewhere. Academics absolutely come first. Don’t make grades? Can’t play. Skip study tables? Can’t play. Skip class? The coach gets a notice and I’m sure there are a few laps added to the practice.

You seem to think being fast and strong and having critical thinking skills are mutually exclusive. Bill Belichick played three sports in college (and not on scholarship) and he seems to be a pretty good critical thinker. Gerald Ford played football and became President. Byron White became a Supreme Court Justice. John Elway turned his Stanford degree into a career operating a multi million dollar business, and running a car dealership enterprise on the side. He’s not stupid.

Do you really think that millions of college athletes just become street people after college, that none of them have gone on to have jobs on Wall Street (check up on the “Lax Bro” connections), become doctors and lawyers and business men and women? Becoming a professional athlete isn’t the only goal of college athletes, but some do continue involvement with their sports, becoming referees, coaches, equipment salesmen, teachers who also coach.

But again, you don’t have to worry. There are many school available to you that don’t offer athletic scholarships or even athletics at all. Pick one of those. It just can’t be Stanford. Or Duke. Or Notre Dame.

@stacynicolex3 You must have a LOT of amazing athletes(with good grades to boot) at your school if they got full ride scholarships. Very few are given out in fact.

@stacynicolex3 Interesting perspective, and a good point. Perhaps you’re looking to see less extensive sports scholarships while scholarships and/or aid in general academia is increased, to level the playing field?

@moscott actually you’re right. My school basically breeds athletes. But no they didn’t have good grades. Their coaches got them away with a lot of things “normal” students wouldn’t get away with. Their coaches also got their grades bumped.

Given the fact that EVERY Division 3 college does not give athletic scholarships and the same goes for all Ivy league schools it seems that something is not adding up to the misconception out there.

@twoinanddone Very, very well stated.

@stacynicolex3 How would you have access to other kids grades and gpa’s? What proof do you have that coaches got their grades bumped. It usually quite the opposite where teachers will absolutely rebel against helping and athletes.

@newkidnewtrix exactly. I don’t think athletes don’t deserve scholarships. But I am saying they don’t deserve the special treatment the Lyndsey receive that the other students do not. Equal opportunity for all kids. I don’t think one talent is better/less than another.

@moscott my proof comes from the kids themselves. They’d gladly tell you coaches got their grades bumped.

Kids not telling the truth…huh. Please tell me the schools these kids got full rides to with poor grades? Doesn’t happen.