Knoxes

Citing the pandemic and related economic constraints, Stanford cut 11 varsity sports including men's and women's fencing, field hockey, lightweight rowing, men's rowing, co-ed and women's sailing, squash, synchronized swimming, men's volleyball and wrestling. The Ivy league cancelled all of the fall sports. I wouldn't be surprised to see other conferences follow. As much as I'll miss them (and I'm a big fan - go to a lot of games/matches on campus every season), I wonder if it's time to move on from NCAA sports. It's chock full of corruption and other issues unrelated to education, but still capitalizing on (often public) educational institution affiliations/resources.

mbb

Some of those aren't real sports.

I agree it's about the money today ,its an entertainment industry, not about the students at all. except a select number they get to move on to a professional entertainment career.

It has absolutely nothing to do with higher education.

These things morphed from being student activities into an entertainment industry.

mwgoldman

I still wonder what's going to be happening to the future of sports. I think this is going to be a long term down turn in sports in general.

WPBTH

IF they cant play football and basketball there are going to be a lot more of this. Most schools have 1-2 sports that make money maybe another 1-2 that come close to breaking even. The rest dont, and those will be gone.

Garett

I disagree on two fronts. They are all sports were one competes. Two, scholarship funding has Everything to do with sports and higher education.

ronp364

I think the issue is that it's going to be far more expensive to conduct a sport. Cleaning stuff, changing the facilities around, monitoring behavior, testing people, dealing with lawsuits, etc. For the pros, big deal, they print money. Same for the major college sports. Not so for these others, so there can't be as many of them, otherwise the colleges can't use the profits of the main sports to fund their pet programs. Some of them like wrestling, how do you even do that now from 6 feet away? Have 2 guys wrestle a dummy and have a judge say who did it better?

Of course the current situation will pass and they know it, so why not suspend some of these and not end them? Because they probably wanted an excuse to ditch them anyway.

Sin Bin fishing RI

you're wrong.

just wrong.

i'm not going to even get into how dumb your post is.

Knoxes

I wish you would. I have very mixed feelings about the issues around collegiate sports. I doubt that I'll ever feel strongly on either (of many) sides about it, but I'd appreciate your input.

mikefloyd

They're dumping these for one simple reason, they don't generate positive cash flow.

JP 3

My uncle [deceased USAF officer] and I were discussing this years ago. (He played football in college.)

He discussed the concept of eliminating athletic scholarships. The idea was that you qualified to get into college based upon your academic performance. If you wanted to play sports that was fantastic, you’d go out for the team – similar to the chess club. While this would never happen, it is an interesting approach. I believe that many of the ivy league schools operate this way. My understanding is that those schools provide funding based on financial need – not how fast you run or how far you can throw a stick.

I agree that the college athletic programs have morphed into a big money entertainment industry. If we had to draw up a better way, I would think that we should leave the schools to teach and have club sports. Then expand professional minor leagues to develop the athletic talent. (BTW, there’s nothing saying that you can’t have someone go to college and play for these professional minor leagues simultaneously.) I think the structure of sports needs to be changed. As a side item, we’d get out the whole discussion about paying amateur athletes.

bakerjw

I don't think that it is dumb. It is more spot on than anything else. Look at the sports budgets and revenues for university football teams. Georgia? Alabama? Then go look at the majors for most of the players. The overwhelming majority take some of the cushiest courses available.

Knoxes

Yeah, this makes sense to me. Davidson didn't offer athletic scholarships until the mid 90's (roughly). But honestly, I'm sure they found a way around it to support their recruiting. What they definitely did not do is lower their educational requirements for potential athletes.

I know of a couple of former college baseball players that were in the minor league system for a couple of years recently. Both families could easily afford tuition, but I'm sure there were many teammates on the roster who didn't have those resources and couldn't have paid for their education with their minor league pay. So the scholarships certainly helped them get access to an education.

mbb

Only football does
It carries all the others

mbb

Nope
Scholarships are totally unnecessary.
Anyone that wants to go to college can borrow money to do so.

Scholarships.....are ONLY a way of enticing particular students to your school....for a reason....not getting them into school at all.


Its entertainment. Period.

In the case of merit based scholarships, it gets better students to school, making it academically stronger.

students have fun....thats all.
My daughter went to undergrad on softball scholarship
Son receives $60k/yr tuition scholarship.

They would both still have gone to college without
Just different schools. And debt.

autobaun70

What the hell is "lightweight rowing."

When I was at Clemson I wish they would have gotten rid of the damn rowing team. They practiced in the section of the lake nearest campus, and turned a whole segment of the lake that you need to pass through to get from one part to another into a giant idle only zone. Really screwed up the boating fun for those of us burning fossil fuels.

autobaun70

What on earth kind of school cost 60K per year?

Knoxes

Fatties need not apply.

Seriously, I had to look it up.

So, I'm guessing the US doesn't do well in this category.

JP 3

And the guy from SC asks "What on earth kind of school cost 60K per year?"

Most of the good ones - which are not in SC.

mbb

You obviusly know nothing sbout college costs today.
Thats just tuition.......with living and books/fees..travel...85k/yr

Theres really a sliding scale
What they call" financial aid".....is just charging those who they think can pay more, more. And those who cant, less. Its criminal. They reduce price with imaginary "aid" for lower income students.

Smart kids dont pay it.....except for ivy league who gives no merit aid...dont have too. Smart kids get scholarshipped everywhere else. Subsidized by dumb ones. And theres a lot of them.

Knoxes

Davidson, Duke, Elon and Wake are all over 50K per year.

Furman (SC) is about 50K.