Unsporting: The Problem of Athletic University Scholarships

As a believer in the academy as one of the few refuges of meritocracy in Western Civilization, the existence of athletic scholarships has always troubled me. As a matter of policy, I have always thought the effects of athletic scholarships to university study fall somewhere between problematic and disastrous.

First, the student interested in athletic scholarships is often encouraged to prioritise athletic activities over academic activities. Second, many universities have a troubling habit of overlooking academic issues or lower levels of academic performance when the candidate shows talent on the basketball court or the football field. Third, the prospect of professional sports careers is tossed around (and the likelihood of this outcome dramatically overestimated), setting unrealistic expectations in the student (who, then, armed with inaccurate information, continues to focus on sports rather than his or her studies).

The statistics are clear: few college athletes go on to play sports professionally. And many partake in college athletic activities that have small commercial revenues associated with them (I have yet to meet someone who has earned a living fencing or as a member of a professional crew team). For the sports that are industries rather than pastimes (particularly football and basketball), universities subsidise athletic activities with funds that could be used toward the primary mission of a university: education.

Some will argue that certain schools actually make money on their athletic programmes. This is true for a small fraction of institutions, but many of these institutions still must optimise admissions around athletic performance, thereby denying places to deserving academically-focused candidates. The majority of universities participating in college athletics do not have profitable, televised games that allow the program to be financially-sustainable. Hence, athletic programmes at most universities are leeches sucking resources from the university's core academic mission.

What do I propose? I propose that if universities (and professional teams) are willing to bet on these athletes at a young age, then third-party investors would also bet on these athletes (and fund their tuition in the form of loans repayable with future income). This would be a sort of “athletic student loan.” A truly exceptional athlete might qualify for better terms than a normal retail student loan (of course, the athlete might then go into investment banking rather than basketball).

The purpose of this segregation of tuition payment and admissions is important: That a person is a remarkable basketball player should not make more of an impact on admissions decisions than that a person is a remarkable chess player or a remarkable photographer. Under my proposal, chess-playing and photography may have lower median incomes associated with them than professional basketball, so people engaged in these activities would see a small (likely negligible) change in their student loan terms.

But a person who has a 10% chance of earning $2,000,000 in the NBA four years from now should not have trouble qualifying for a $20,000 loan. Given the sophistication of scouting statistics in many team sports, I am confident lending models could be built that would be quite accurate. Now, someone might argue, “But what about the kid who takes out lots of loans and doesn’t make it to the NBA draft?” The truth is that kid will be in the same position as many, many of his peers.

Giving free or subsidised tuition (and even admission) to students on the basis of athletic prowess does little for diversity, little for the core mission of the university as a research institution, and little for society. There are far better ways university resources – both in terms of money and in terms of places in undergraduate programmes – than on the basis of which sports happen to be popular. In fact, it is hard to envision a metric more poorly-suited to a university’s core mission.

If people want to invest in future athletes’ promise and income, that’s fine. But let’s leave those investments to investors, not universities.