Keeping score, to a degree
Re “Academic March Madness,” Opinion, April 5
At this time of year, we always see pieces lamenting the low graduation rates of student athletes. Lindsey Luebchow and Kevin Carey assume that without a college degree, the individual won’t be able to “go pro” in anything. I challenge the assumption that having a degree is crucial.
Colleges and universities bend over backward to make it easy for students to graduate, especially athletes. Players can choose to take enough additional courses to complete their degrees after their playing eligibility is through. Sometimes they do, and if the player were a star, the school usually makes a big deal about it. This tells us that possessing a college degree of the sort that most “student athletes” earn isn’t worth much. Simply because one player accumulates enough credits to graduate doesn’t necessarily mean that he will have more in the way of marketable skills than the millions of other young people who dropped out or never went to college at all.
George C. Leef
Raleigh, N.C.
The writer is vice president for research at the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
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All the scholarship money that goes to students who never finish college should be spent on deserving non-athletes, those high achievers like my daughter. She graduated in the top 5% of her class at a very competitive high school, with a 4.3 grade-point average and enough college credits to fulfill a whole college semester. She will graduate from UC Berkeley this May, but because she received only $200 in scholarships, she will be $30,000 in debt. If she chooses to pay it over 20 years, that debt will balloon to about $60,000. Priorities at our universities have gotten out of hand.
Maryanne Rose
Laguna Niguel
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In the era of financial difficulties at UCLA, it is a scandal to give scholarships to academically challenged athletes who get basketball training while attending UCLA and later become professional players earning millions of dollars. The players should pay back the cost of their training to UCLA.
Marcel Gawartin
Ladera Heights
