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High-Visibility Athletic Programs and the Prestige of Public Universities Can Academic Progress Help Collegiate Football Teams Win? Jeffrey W. Lucas, University of Maryland INTRODUCTION Recently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) released its first Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores for its football and basketball programs. The APR measures how well athletic programs educate student athletes and will be used to sanction programs that do not perform well academically. With these new academic reforms, the NCAA has taken the groundbreaking step of linking athletic success to academic success. Proposed NCAA sanctions for collegiate athletic programs that fail to adequately educate student-athletes highlight the prevailing view that athletic success comes at the expense of academic progress. Some research, including research sponsored by the NCAA, has found that high-visibility athletic programs do not help to financially support the academic missions of universities (Litan, Orszag and Orszag 2003, Shulman and Bowen 2001). Research also has found no link between money spent on athletic programs and academic quality (Litan, Orszag and Orszag 2003). Yet, some clear links have been identified between athletic and academic success. Athletic success increases student applications to universities (Murphy and Trandel 1994, Zimbalist 1999). Theoretically at least, increased applications lead to more selective admissions and thus better students. Moreover, research by Lovaglia and Lucas (2005) suggested that high-visibility athletic programs increase the prestige of a public university’s academic degrees. The APR may be useful in promoting a positive association between academics and athletics in another way: Might providing better education for collegiate athletes now help athletic programs win? The purpose of the proposed NCAA sanctions for programs with low APR scores is to motivate collegiate athletic programs to do a better job educating student athletes. In addition, the APR has the potential to motivate coaches in more powerful ways. First, it allows a direct test of the hypothesis that the athletic success of collegiate sports programs is negatively correlated with the academic success of their student athletes. If it can be demonstrated that no strong negative correlation exists between athletic and academic success, then coaches might be less ambivalent about insisting that athletes progress academically. Second, and most importantly, athletic recruits can use the APR to decide among competing athletic programs. While young athletes recruited to high profile athletic programs may be most concerned with pursuing a successful athletic career, they (and their parents) nonetheless realize the value of a college education. When deciding between two equally successful athletic programs, it would be in a student’s interest to pick the one with a higher APR. If student athletes begin to favor programs with higher APR scores, then the best athletes will go to schools that promote the academic progress of their athletes. Coaches would then have a powerful reason to promote the academic progress of their athletes. It would help them recruit better athletes and win. The perceived relationship between athletic and academic success would shift from negative to positive. Comparing the academic and athletic success of collegiate programs, however, is not a simple calculation. If an accessible indicator existed that gave equal weight to academic and athletic success, then the best student athletes might well gravitate toward those programs that offered not only the best chance of athletic stardom but also the best opportunity for a solid education. We develop a combined measure of athletic and academic success, the Student-Athlete Performance Rate (SAPR). The SAPR assigns programs a score based equally on athletic and academic success. To demonstrate its use, we compute SAPR scores for football programs in major conferences (ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, PAC-10, and SEC plus Notre Dame). M. Lovaglia and Jeffrey W. Lucas. 2005. “High Visibility Athletic Programs and the Prestige of Public Universities.” The Sport Journal 8(2):1-5. High-Visibility Athletic Programs and the Prestige of Public Universities Michael J. Lovaglia, University of Iowa INTRODUCTION Why are athletic programs such a prominent part of higher education in the United States? Lately, educators have been questioning the value of a connection between high-visibility athletic programs and the academic mission of higher education (Sperber 2003). Do high-visibility athletic programs add value to a university education? We conducted a study to test the idea that high-visibility athletic programs at major public universities can increase the prestige of their academic programs. That is, a high-visibility athletic program may increase the value of a university’s degree, increasing the prestige of its graduates in general. If so, then increased university prestige may provide an explanation for the growth of university athletic programs and their prominent role in higher education. As the budgets for high-visibility athletic programs at major universities grow ever larger, common explanations for the increase have not been supported by empirical evidence. The competition among university athletic programs has been likened to an “arms race” as major universities strive to avoid being left behind. Why universities continue to increase their athletic budgets, however, has been difficult to explain. Research fails to support the common assumption that the substantial revenue from ticket sales, TV contracts, and apparel endorsements brought in by high-visibility athletic programs helps to support their universities. Nor has it been demonstrated that bigger athletic budgets increase alumni donations. The NCAA commissioned a study (Litan, Orszag and Orszag 2003) to investigate the effects of increasing budgets for university athletic programs. The study found little evidence for several common explanations for increasing athletic budgets. Rather than contribute revenue to general university operations, high visibility athletic programs are revenue neutral. That is, big-time university athletic programs cost their universities about as much money as they generate. Litan, Orzag and Orzag (2003) found that an additional dollar spent on a Division I-A football or basketball program produces about the same amount of increased revenue to the university. Moreover, winning programs are no more likely to contribute net revenue to the university than are losing programs (Sheehan 2000). In addition, Litan, Orzag and Orzag (2003) found no relationship between increased budgets and alumni contributions. Shulman and Bowen (2001, p. 257) examined in detail a wide variety of athletic programs at universities and colleges. They concluded, “Whatever the other benefits of athletic programs are, or are perceived to be, the pursuit of net revenues is very difficult to accept as a justification.” Anecdotal evidence suggests that winning athletic programs increase the number and quality of student applicants to universities. This justification for the growth in athletic budgets has been labeled the “Flutie effect” after a dramatic increase in student applications at Boston College in the years immediately following a dramatic game-winning performance by quarterback Doug Flutie and his subsequent Heisman Trophy. The spike in student applications was short-lived as applications returned to earlier levels along with the performance of the football team after Flutie’s graduation, further suggesting that the football team’s success was directly responsible for increased student applications. Further, increased student applications could affect academic quality by allowing universities selectively to admit better students. Thus, there could be a positive relationship between a university’s athletic success and its academic quality, at least theoretically. While Litan, Orzag and Orzag (2003) found no relationship between increased athletic expenditures and academic quality, considerable evidence supports the idea that athletic success increases the number of student applications (Murphy and Trandel 1994, Zimbalist 1999). We propose that students prefer universities with high-visibility athletic programs in part because they associate increased prestige with academic degrees from those schools. If so, then the prestige rank that students assign to value of academic degrees from major public universities will correspond to the visibility of the universities’ athletic programs. | ||
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