At Many Colleges the Term Student-Athlete Simply Does Not Apply
Each year Derrick Z. Jackson,
a columnist for the Boston Globe, reviews the college graduation rates for the 64 football teams that are invited to a bowl game. This year was Jackson’s 12th edition of what he calls his “Graduation Gap Bowl.”
For someone who believes that sports has a great many benefits for students, the annual review is a sobering experience. The summary always demonstrates how far big time college sports can stray from the original intent of the game.
Some Colleges Do Have Student Athletes
There are some sterling performances. The Naval Academy produced a bowl team this year, a sign of success on the field. More importantly, according to the 2007 National Collegiate Athletic Association Graduation Rates Report covering scholarship athletes, the graduation success rate at the school is 95 percent. In other words, Navy truly has student-athletes playing football.
Number two in the land is Boston College with a graduation success rate of 93 percent. BC also produces virtually identical rates for white and black athletes, 94% and 90% respectively.
Jackson notes just how unique these schools are. Of course, with coaches making $2 million and more the pressure to win would of course render the student piece less important at many institutions.
Graduation Discrepancies Abound
Amazingly, only 22 of the 64 schools score a touchdown in Jackson’s annual Gap Bowl. To score a touchdown, a school must graduate 50% of its white football players, 50% of its black football players, and have a graduation gap of less than 15 percentage points between the two groups.
Another 14 schools graduate 50% of their black and white players, though the discrepancy between the two groups is at least 15 percentage points for those schools. By simple arithmetic, the other 28 schools receive a failing grade from Jackson with one group or the other (or both) failing to reach the 50% plateau.
The Title of Student Is Missing for Many
To no one’s surprise it is the black athletes that are shortchanged and many of the numbers are staggering. At Georgia 29% of blacks earn their degrees; at Texas just 30%; at Nevada 31% and at Georgia Tech 34%.
The worst graduation gap was 53-percentage-point difference between white and black players from Arkansas (graduating just 35% of black scholarship players).
Jackson goes on to point out that “if graduation rates and gaps were the criteria, four of the five Bowl Championship Series games would not be played.” And what about the BCS title game between Ohio State and Louisiana State?
Ohio State has a 43 percent black player graduation rate, a 31 point differential than white players. Believe it or not that was a major step up for a school that a year ago had a black graduation rate of 32 percent and a racial gap of 53 percentage points.
Meanwhile, LSU’s black player graduation rate is 42 percent, 28 percentage points behind the white players. Like OSU, that too was a great improvement over the prior year’s black graduation rate of 37 percent and racial gap of 36 percentage points.
Giving Athletics a Bad Name
These numbers indicate the sad fact that most of these young football players cannot be given the title student-athlete. Yet those schools that provide these scholarships, in essence an opportunity for a free education, hide behind the fact that more than half of those on scholarship never get a diploma.
In reality, these schools simply rent bodies for the purposes of getting to a bowl game. Thank goodness that each year Mr. Jackson publicizes this ugly truth for all to see.
8 comments
This article only tells part of the story…what about choices these students make? You’ve decided to make this a “black and white” issue on multiple levels. Many of these students choose to leave early for the pros (and never return for a degree), they choose to skip class, they choose to get in legal trouble, they choose to deal with family issues..all which may lead to them not graduating. What are the real numbers?…this is just sensationalism. You only want to point out that black students are being used. Let’s let some real statistics do the talking…take life and the student’s responsibility for their own decisions into account.
Austin,
Thanks for your feedback. Two things are dreadful in our eyes, the black-white discrepancy is one but the overall rates are another issue. You are right, the athlete owns a piece of this as well. But we wonder, does Boston College do something in the acceptance process as well as make efforts during the student’s time in school? The key is the discrepancy between schools, some do really well and others are simply terrible.
Tom Hanson
Editor
Are you joking? this is just plain stupidity. Do you really believe half the things that come out of your mouth. Half the players who go to the better football schools aren’t going there to get a degree ,or a top notch education. They are going there to show off for the nfl scouts. If you think that the fact that they dont graduate is a bad thing when it comes with millions of dollars for playing the sport that they love, you have to be kiding. And if you blame the schools for the players not getting good grades thats just unfair. It the players own damn proboblem. The only time that the colledges are gonna do is keep them from becoming ineligible. Blame the players not the schools.
Dear R U,
Yes, we think that it is a bad thing that they do not earn a diploma. That is the fundamental tenet of our article, that the term student-athlete, sadly, does not apply.
Tom Hanson
It is a shame that you, like so much of the media today, try to turn everything into a race issue. Secondly, how is it the school’s fault if there is a graduation gap. Part of the lesson of college (supposedly) is that it is the STUDENT’s responsibility to succeed. Also, I do not see anything referring to the number of students, athlete or non-athlete that take longer, or return later to get their degree.
As long as we keep looking for somebody else to blame for whatever problem we see, we will not find the answer to that problem.
[...] in December we took a look at the appalling graduation rates of college athletes, especially those at major universities where [...]
I love this article. IT shows that good scholarship funds are going to people who obviously don’t seem to care about a college education. A College Education is what the Scholarship money is SUPPOSED to be fore. NOT a sideshow to get into the NFL. There are many students that need that funding to get a higher education, and they can’t get it because it goes to a bunch of ball players that obviously don’t care about getting a degree and an education. IF you take money to be a STUDENT-ATHLETE, then you should be both a STUDENT as well as an athlete. Otherwise, you have no business taking the funding away from another bright, intelligent student that truly has the desire to learn. Anyone that thinks these low graduation rates “don’t matter” (regardless of race) Is totally missing the point of what College Sports was originally intended to be. If I donated money to a college for scholarship purposes, I would want it to go to a deserving college hopeful that will use this opportunity to attend schooling to the fullest. Not someone that hopes to make millions for himself playing ball. You should see that Race is not the issue here, it’s the principle of taking the scholarship money without accepting the responsibility of being a STUDENT of the university.
The graduation rates are very poor across the board, white or black. I would be interested to go deeper then race on this issue and look at the socio-economic background of the players who are succeeding and failing. The fact that alot of these black athletes are coming from poor backgrounds where academics are not given alot of weight and the schools aren’t up to snuff. If you want to give proper insight why don’t we look at white and black students who have the same socio-economic background and see if there is a difference. If there is then you have a racial issue otherwise it’s bad research that is not controlling for other high impact factors.
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