Should Graduation Rates Affect NCAA March Madness Bids?

March 15, 2010 RSS Feed Print

The NCAA basketball championship is great for fans, schools, and sponsors, but some ask whether it is good for student athletes, with graduation rates dismal at many colleges. Others say players understand the deal and suggest that the NCAA should give up the ‘amateur’ pretense.
Edited by Steve St. Angelo

Yes

Ben Miller
Policy analyst at Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington

This week, 65 teams will begin competing in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. A billion-dollar, monthlong extravaganza, the tournament showcases the best of college sports—rabid fan bases, historic rivalries, and a format that puts small rural colleges on par with big state powerhouses. But beneath the glam and glitz lies a problem the NCAA would rather leave unnoticed: the dismal classroom performance...

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No

Marc Isenberg
Author of 'The Student Athlete Survival Guide' and 'Money Players' and adviser to college programs

 

Asked if he had earned a degree while playing basketball at Clemson University, former NBA player Elden Campbell replied, “No, but they gave me one anyway.” That was in 1991. At the 2010 NCAA Convention in January, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the continuing contradiction between playing big-time college basketball and football and getting an education. Duncan proposed restoring freshman ineligibility...

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Should the NCAA weigh graduation rates when inviting schools to March Madness?

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basketball,
college athletics,
NCAA,
sports

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Why does the Gov't always want to get involved where they do not belong. Why don't we put the same question to Congress. You get the same percentage of pay as vote you cast. You miss 50 % of the votes in a year, you get 50 % pay. We pay you to be there, we voted for you to be there, thats your job.

Rich Novak of MO 1:31PM March 26, 2010

Let's face it, with incredibly rising student tuition at universities and student loans that are just at enormous rates in a job market that doesn't provide, it's a fact at this point that many many more high school students are reconsidering going to universities. That's partly why the High School drop out rate is increasing at rates we have never seen year by year and also the reason by we are seeing more and more students skip university education for more career and tech schools where they can get a certificate in a computer or medical field within a couple of years and with a lot less money.

I coach basketball and have been doing so for 14 YEARS now straight. And I see middle school and high school students now more than ever not care about keeping up any good grades in order to play Div 1 ball or go to university... They say, "well, Koby Bryant and Lebron James didn't go to college and look at them now, they play in the NBA and make the big bucks." Ya, but how many Kobe's and Lebron's are there? Majority of players need to go through college and we need to make college more difficult to get into. I'm sorry, when I see some of these teams such as Kentucky or Missouri play, they don't see like the educated types such as those players coming from Duke or UCLA or CAL Berkely. You can see the difference.

We're breeding dumb people in the US and basketball is helping in that regard. We need educational reform Mr. President...

THINK4YURSELF of CA 2:56PM March 23, 2010

Obama is clearly not a fan of Las Vegas ,so would he be in favor of barring schools with low grad rates since the NCAA is the de facto farm system for the pros that benefits sports gambling?

2 if by sand of KY 10:15PM March 21, 2010

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