Myles Brand is quoted in the USA Today article, http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2008-05-06-apr-penalties_N.htm
The NCAA acknowledges that schools with more financial resources are in a better position to address academic needs. But, "it isn't so much the resources that an institution has to put into athletics as what priorities they have," the NCAA's Brand said. "It makes more sense to put the money into academic support for student-athletes than it does in the development of new (luxury stadium) suites."
As I noted a few weeks ago, I discussed the idea of investigating the APR as a potential dissertation topic because I thought that indeed it would further separate the haves from the have nots. I think this is a bigger deal than maybe Myles is noting -- is it just altruistic to say that it is merely a priority issue, or is it a REAL issue, a money issue. It's tough to keep up with the Joneses, even in academics, when Michigan State is building $5 million academic support centers and has 25+ academic support staff, many well paid, when at San Jose State -- who knows what they have; I doubt it compares. It think this is a pretty big issue. I'd like to dig further on this and actually compare BCS vs non BCS numbers. Beyond that, I'd love to compare APR for teams vs team GPAs (and majors). It really speaks to some institutional identity issues as well...
Your thoughts?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Scott - A little push back and playing devil's advocate. What is the "so what" here? If you do find that those who have the most money have higher APR scores, then what? I don't think that finding would be a big surprise. Perhaps the major finding would in fact be that more money = more academic resources which translates into better APR performance. I would be interested in seeing schools that have the least amount of resources and high APR scores. One could even break it down further to look at the schools with the least academically prepared athletes that still do well on the APR or GSR. By the way, does the cut-off APR score of 925 (approx. 60% graduation success rate), seem a bit low to anyone else?
Troy
Exactly. That is part of my point - more money = more academic resources = better APR performance.
I completely agree, high APR with low resources... who are they? I need to find that out.
But, part of my rationale is that many institutions just don't have bundles of money to throw around. So, do they spend it either on academics or athletics? If forced to spend it on academics, then does that reduce their athletic competitiveness by not improving the weight room, repaving their track, etc??
Is that a good so what? I think variations on that scenario would all be interesting... and to see over time, if in fact low APR does force institutions to spend more money into academic resources.
Critics may say that who cares about athletic competitiveness at the expense of athletics; but I see it as a potential vicious spiral whereby the APR keeps the mid major schools from keeping up with the BCS schools.
Of course, this is all conjecture... but I'd love to take a closer look at the data.
Post a Comment