Economic issues in Intercollegiate Athletics: A book review essay (*).

• Author: Siegfried, John J.
• Position: Review Article

The Game of Life and Intercollegiate Athletics challenge presidents, boards, alumni, students, and faculty of the colleges and universities in the United States to rethink the place of athletics in their institutions. William G. Bowen, former president of Princeton University, with coauthor, James L. Shulman, and James J. Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan, explore the place of athletics in higher education and reach similar conclusions.

The ancient and noble goal of offering all students opportunities to participate in sports has evolved into an arms race that erodes intellectual focus, imposes a substantial financial burden on the institutions, and reduces participation in intercollegiate sports by all but those specially recruited for specific athletic roles. Professional athletic administrations with full-time coaches, substantial recruiting budgets, and elaborate facilities respond to pressures to win by enrolling students with substantially lower academic qualifications than their peers. The Game documents these changes and evaluates their effects on the kind of students enrolled, the education they receive, and the lives they go on to lead. Although The Game does not consider peer effects, recent evidence (Zimmerman 1999; Sacerdote 2001) implies that the gap between athletes' and other students' academic credentials also diminishes the educational experience of nonathletes. Because the motivation and preparation of other students matte r to an individual's learning, having substantial numbers of classmates whose motivation is sports and whose academic preparation is limited diminishes the amount of learning for the rest.

The pursuit of winning records causes relatively more distortion at our most selective institutions--Princeton and Yale, Stanford and Duke, Swarthmore and Williams. Indeed, as Shulman and Bowen document, because of their relative size, the impact of athletic recruiting is greater at Ivy League and elite private liberal arts colleges and universities than at large public universities. Although only 3% of the men in the University of Michigan's large undergraduate population are on intercollegiate sports teams, this fraction rises to 11% at Duke, 22% at Princeton, and 40% at Williams. An average of 32% of the male graduates of coed liberal arts colleges who entered in 1989 had played on an intercollegiate team, compared to just 9% in Division IA public and private universities. Because total enrollment at selective institutions is relatively constant, many of the places taken by recruited athletes are places that would otherwise have been occupied by students with more focused intellectual aspirations. The gap in admissions credentials between the average athlete and the average nonathlete is so great as to imply that even those nonathletes on the admissions "wait list" are better prepared academically than is the average athlete. Nevertheless, The Game would make its case more forcefully if it were able to compare the academic qualifications of the athletes admitted to the qualifications of the best applicants not admitted.

The Game is based on the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's "College and Beyond" survey of all graduates of the entering classes of 1951, 1976, and 1989 at 30 selective colleges and universities. There are about 90,000 individuals in the sample, covering 75% of the population. In addition to those noted here, the colleges include Denison, Hamilton, Kenyon, Oberlin, and Wesleyan. Women's colleges include Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Smith, and Wellesley. The private universities include Columbia, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn, Rice, Tulane, and Vanderbilt with Division IA athletics and Emory, Tufts, and Washington University (St. Louis) in Division III. And there are four public universities at Division IA in the sample--Miami (Ohio), Michigan, North Carolina, and Penn State.

The findings of this study are so remarkable that they are worth repeating here. Average combined SAT scores of male athletes who entered Division IA public universities in 1989 were 237 points below the all-student average. The gap was even larger--284--at selective private Division IA universities. In the non-athletic-scholarship Ivy League and coed liberal arts colleges, the gaps were less--125 and 135, respectively--but still substantial. Only at the women's colleges have athletes shown academic credentials comparable to their nonathlete peers--at least through 1989.

A difference in academic preparation between male athletes and other male students was already present in the 1950s, but the difference was negligible. The gap becomes substantial in the 1976 cohort, is even larger in 1989, and seems to be still growing in 1999. At one nonathletic-scholarship school in 1976, male athletes were 23% more likely to be admitted than were other comparable students after controlling for SAT score with regression. This admission advantage rose to 30% in 1989 and 48% in 1999. Among female athletes at coed schools, a similar difference is emerging, although a decade or so behind the men. The athletic preference in admissions is dramatic and accelerating.

Graduation rates for athletes are comparable to other students, but the athletes earned substantially lower grade-point averages (GPAs) than other students did. The Game reports regressions to predict GPAs controlling for SAT scores, rank in high school class, and more. It finds that athletes earn grades well below forecasts. This suggests a culture of athletics that drives athletes' academic performance even below the lower-than-average level of the forecasts. The...