This is a classic which came first, the dinosaur or the egg argument: You wrote that the focus on sports at the university level is responsible for much of the decline in higher education.
I simply disagree. It may be part of the problem but certainly not, in my mind, the cause. MIT has no sports program of any note, Stanford does. Both are top flight.
The decline in higher education can be traced to the mindset that everyone needs a college degree, the subsequent cheapening of degrees, and the lack of rigor (both curricula and grades) at the high school level.
College is the new High School, with degree programs that make little sense other than as a boutique exercise in degreemanship.
Higher education has become cheapened because the schools value in the influx of money over the quality of student...not everywhere, but in enough schools that it matters. They treat students in much the same way they treat athletes, as a commodity that will be gone soon.
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Originally Posted by nostatic
And Caltech has no football team (other than club sport) and attracts even better academic talent, staff and students.
I believe that sports and competition have a place in higher education. Just not to the level that many seem to want. Then again, I did not go to a large Division 1A university, and frankly don't "get" the whole live-or-die with the football team results.
Or to offer another example, USC has undergone a pretty dramatic transformation over the past two decades. It now is a top university, with many of its schools in the top 20 or top 10 rankings. And that was accomplished by President Sample focusing on academics. While football certainly played a role (though I'd love to see a breakout of the budgets), it was the focus on research and academics that turned the place around.
To say that a university now has a huge endowment because of the football program is somewhat self-fulfilling. They focused on that aspect and based everything else on that. Clearly there are many successful universities that have not used football as a "necessary evil" to fund their academic programs.
College football and basketball are now the minor league programs for the pros. Many of those on scholarships never graduate, so basically the "students" are getting paid their minor league salary to play. And this all so the alumni can get bragging rights about how great their football team is?
Higher education is broken - and this is one reason why.
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