I sat next to a collegiate football player in an undergraduate Speech class my freshman year. I couldn’t tell you his name, about his behavior in class, or what his speeches pertained to, as he was never there. On the first day of class, he told the professor that he was on the football team and that he would miss our next class as he was traveling with the team for a game. I stared at his empty seat for the duration of the semester, stowing my backpack on his chair, wondering where he was. As I entered the classroom for our final exam, I was shocked to see that he was present. To my knowledge, he passed the final exam and was awarded credit for a class he only attended twice.
For large Division 1 schools, their athletes bring in a lot of money for the university. From packed stadiums to mass merchandise to securing prestige at the university, college athletes are a financial asset. Therefore, they get special privileges that non-athletes do not receive. Most universities require a specific GPA to participate in sports, but this GPA is low; a 2.8 GPA is not conducive to a student’s success in academics. The NCAA homepage is full of articles detailing the victories of athletes in-game, but there is seldom an article about an athlete’s academic achievement.
Athletes often receive full scholarships that cover the cost of tuition, room and board, and dining. For non-athletes, academic scholarships often do not cover the full cost of tuition. Ironically, students who are attending college for the express purpose of learning do not receive the same financial preferential treatment.
According to Kirsten Hextrum, an education professor at the University of Oklahoma, recruited athletes tend to be whiter, wealthier, and more suburban than the typical college applicant. She found that recruited athletes were assisted and guided through the application process by athletic staff. The data shows that athletes with below-average standardized test scores were twice as likely to be accepted into Ivy League schools compared to legacy students and four times as likely to be accepted when compared to students from traditionally underrepresented groups.
The Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletes published a study in 2022 that shows that smaller colleges are relying on sports programs to keep a decent enrollment and financially succeed.
Student-athletes get preferential treatment and underperform typical students. It is not fair that universities, a place for higher learning, ignore their non-athlete students because they are not as profitable as athletes. Higher education should be primarily focused on academic success and achievement, not sports.
