Should NCAA Ban Schools From March Madness for Low Graduation Rates?

Yes, weigh, at least to a reasonable degree,graduation rates--we're talking college, as in education, not sports factories. Dumbing-down, pretense, and otherwise gaming the system to produce "winners" (read money) do not represent the ideals educational institutions should be dedicated to achieving. Players are supposed to be students, not just athletes, so the NCAA need to find a way to enforce reasonable academic requirements. Academic eligibility rules for individual athletic participation are already in place but need to be strengthened, given the Sports 101 courses allowed. But there's nothing in place to pressure institutions--and there's nothing quite like loss of--or inability to enhance--money and fame to "encourage" these "institutions of higher learning" to take more seriously their obligation to educate.

As for paying college athletes, I sympathize with those who protest the pretense of their "amateur" status, and I wouldn't register a definite "no" to a stipend, given the monetary value they can bring to the colleges they represent. However, the scholarships they enjoy should suffice. Far too few collegiate athletes can reasonably count on a pro career--and those who can always face the prospect of significant injury shortening or ending their career--so the education they receive needs to be their primary concern, and, it should go without saying, what the colleges exist to provide.

Having argued for graduation rate inclusion for college participation, I can appreciate the unfairness against current athletes who suffer for the the inadequacies of former ones, so I'd recommend a transitional period, a "grandfathering in," if you will. But colleges known as basketball or football factories, despite abysmal academic achievement of their student-athletes, need to become relics of the past. Time to finally place proper emphasis on what we say really counts in our educational institutions--education.

Richard Palzer of IL 6:28PM March 14, 2010