Title: Explaining the Graduation Gap - Athletes vs. Non- Athletes: A Study of the Big Ten and Missouri Valley Conferences
Abstract: Recently, the low rate of student-athlete graduation success has become a concern of the NCAA, individual universities, and the public. Although more recent studies have found that there has been a slight increase in the graduation rates of NCAA athletes, they are still sub-par and usually below those of the non-athlete undergraduates. The primary reasoning behind this phenomenon is that NCAA Division I athletics are treated more like a professional business than a collegiate sport. This leads to the problem of exploitation of college athletes by coaches, athletic programs, and universities. A study by Robert W. Brown (1996) shows that “a premium college athlete, one eventually drafted by a professional sports team, produces over $500,000 in annual revenues for his college team (Brown, 1996). This finding indicates that there are additional incentives for athletic programs to acquire top athletes. In the past, these additional economic incentives seemed to overshadow athletic programs’ priority of obtaining top athletes who were also successful in academics. Due to the growing concern of this issue, it has been the topic of multiple studies. However, the results are not uniform for all studies, and the independent variables used vary.
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
Cited By Count: 2
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot