OT Ralph Nader wants to get rid of athletic scholarships
Ralph Nader also wanted to be President. How did that work out for him?
March 25th, 2011 at 10:59 AM ^
Agreed, this feels like a cry for attention more than anything else. Plus, it's in his nature to rabble rouse. I have a feeling something else shiny will pop up and he'll go after that instead.
Swiss cheese for logic, that Nader.
is a few positive by-products of a sick system.
I also think it's a good thing that you said "sometimes" when referring to those who don't make the NFL getting good jobs. One former MSU D-lineman told me that every year former football players would come back and relay the horrors of life after college football. They got meaningless degrees in bullshit subjects with shitty GPA's. By and large, they're not employable.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:14 AM ^
A meaningless degree in a bullshit subject with shitty GPA is still better than a meaningless high school diploma with a shitty GPA (or a GED, or nothing at all...) which is what many scholarship athletes would have without sports.
I tend to think that the answer to most, if not all, of them is "yes." And that's deeply troubling.
However, I don't think the pin can go back in the grenade on this issue. Like much of Nader's work (apart from his efforts in helping to construct a more robust regulatory scheme, e.g., seatbelts in cars, etc....), his comments here are useful for purposes of recognizing the problems (which you've pointed out), but ultimately unrealistic as to be ridiculous, as was noted above.
There's no question that "student athletes," at least in the revenue sports, are in fact at best "athlete students," and more often than not strictly "athletes" using the university as a pedestal to stand on. IMHE, the most we could ever hope for, in terms of saving the academic side of things, is a couple daring schools from the major conferences to set an example by evaluating everyone in a uniform admissions process, and then awarding admissions and scholarships to underprivileged, academically focused kids. But even this will never happen.
One thing I've recently come to think is that the NBA, NFL, etc... should be charged with player development, instead of relying on universities to do it for free. It's a sweet deal for the professional leagues, and one I don't think they're entitled to.
Does any other country in the world have a college athletics structure like we do? Is this one of the causes for our generally shitty education? Or a symptom?
Interesting idea. The other idea that I heard thrown around for years is to get rid of financial aid for a year. Enrollment would drop off the table obviously. The automatic nature of granting debt to anyone who applies, actually pushes college costs through the roof and way above what college is actually worth in a free market.
In other words, if I am a college I can simply raise tuition thoughtlessly and with the financial aid system in place, I'll still get my money from someone. College itself is way behind the times of the job market that it pretends to serve.
As great as Michigan is, it doesn't change my opinion that a 4 year college degree is one of the most overrated things in our society. The others being health insurance, home ownership, and hot women.
Not sure about hot women, but I have to agree with your other three examples. Not too long ago a college degree was relatively affordable and would guarantee you a job. People are having a hard time realizing that that simply isn't true anymore. If you can get one without putting yourself in massive debt, then it'll likely end up a good idea. Agree with health insurance. If you look after yourself and are still relatively young, a yearly checkup is just a waste of money. Though I won't get into the social issues of health insurance, its notion as a necessity to all is dumb (this does not in any way mirror my feelings on universal healthcare, like I said I'm trying to avoid the social issue here), and the financial issues it raises are avoidable.
And home ownership...I suppose it's good and all. I'd rather not put myself through the stress, though. I live where I live so I can live there, not so I can make money off of it.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:36 AM ^
If the reason you can't sell a product is because it's too pricey, is the solution to make it even more expensive? Obviously not. Simple supply and demand curve. There would be a huge demand out there for services that are too expensive, and the first supplier to meet the market's price would get that business.
I like it. I've thought the same thing about lending/credit in general. Seems that the advent of credit cards and personal loans and fifteenth mortgages, etc. is what has created the incredible inflation that we've seen over the last 20 years.
A Mustang in 1965 was, what, $3,000? Now it's $30,000? Has the dollar really gone up 1000%? I'm not sure, but I don't think it has. What has gone up is that you can now pay it off over 5 years instead of having to roll in with a bag full of Benjamin's. Nevermind that paying it off over 5 years will actually cost you $40,000... For a car that cost about $15,000 to build in some plant in Mexico. (I know, Mustangs aren't built in Mexico, but you get the idea).
As far as athletes go, it was funny to hear about Nader because just the other day I thought they should give them need based aid in ADDITION to their schollarship. If they had the schollarship pay for room and board, and then use need based aid for everything else (spending cash, clothes, etc.), I'd like to think that it would help the kids who are coming from less fortunate backgrounds. Kids from families that can afford to put spending money in the pocket of their scholarship athlete wouldn't get as much as kids from families that can't. Would anybody be really pissed that these kids get to rack up a couple grand in loans while they're in school?
Not a perfect answer to the problem, but I think it'd help alleviate some of the issues of leeches attaching themselves to kids with no money by giving them some spending cash, and snowballing into much worse.
I agree with you about a college degree. The cost of a college degree has never been higher, and the value added by it has never been lower. The problem starts with the institutions themselves, but it doesn't end there. Why? Because to get anywhere, you need that piece of paper. College is more about getting certified than actually getting an education or learning a trade. So you pay your outrageous fees, pass your courses (95% of which will have no application in your professional career), and then get your paper.
And I agree double with home ownership. Horribly overrated. All of the big bucks that you supposedly save by not paying rent anymore are offset by interest, the fees that you pay later to sell your house, and the huge upkeep costs.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:17 AM ^
As a famous blogfather often says, many college graduates are "credentialed, not educated".
Nader makes a point that I somewhat agree with.
I am a teacher and a coach. I coach soccer and wrestling. One of my convictions is that athletics are an ideal partner with academics. I have seen countless kids change their lives because of sports. I really believe in their ability to help kids achieve.
That said, we are cutting billions from out education system. When it comes down to it, I'd rather cut sports than music, art, science equpiment, or loading classes with 50 kids.
Also I think if we cut athletic scholarships, or if we cut all varsity sports, the general public might actually get pissed and force our government to invest more in education.
Nader is an idiot but this time he alludes to a good point.
the simple fact that many kids focus on sports for a scholarship. This dedication to sports keeps them out of trouble. I have seen intances where kids gets cut from a team due to grades or behavioral problems then trouble begins.
If this just leads to an unusually large number of scholarships going to Pat Buchanan.
/2000 Election'd
Ralph Nader is still alive?
in Canada when I lived there 20 yrs ago.
Regardless of your athletic ability you had to qualify academically.
Maybe things have changed, but I didnt see a problem with it.
Harvard, Yale and the like are already operating football teams (amongst other sports) without scholarships. It is really not that absurd of an idea and, I believe, much more likely to happen the NCAA implementing salaries/wages for student athletes.
Personally, I would go a step further than Nader and also attempt to reduce the size of big time athletics by eliminating the big time money that comes into the sport via television contracts. In my perfect world, ESPN, ABC, CBS etc can take a hike. There's really no reason that a University of Michigan football game couldn't be shown free of charge (and without annoying commercials & annoying commentators) via Michigan Public Television.
Obviously I'm speaking of (an unlikely to happen) ideal world, but college athletics should be a rather provincial matter. An expression of alumni and possibly regional pride. A slightly bigger version of high school sports but not much more than that. If there is money to be made by exploiting 18-22 year old athletes (and obviously there is) then I would rather see that happen completely divorced of education altogether. Let the NFL & NBA deal with it instead.
And oddly enough, the separation of professional athletics and college athletics seems to work just fine for sports other than football and basketball.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:39 AM ^
The Ivy's have already done two other things though, both based heavily on that fact that they're, you know, the Ivy League and nobody else is.
They've taken themselves out of contention for national titles in the big team sports (with the exception of hockey every few years).
And they've cut all merit scholarships.
Regardless, they have the recruiting pitch that, hey, you'll be able to get into Harvard (and their athletic admission standards are far lower than that for normal applicants). Look at the Big XII or the SEC, would any potential student athlete be excited about getting into OSU (NTOSU) or Arkansas?
Because a) they've taken themselves out of national contention for FB/MBB and b) they have an exclusive product that no other conference on a whole can offer, it's just different with them than with 99% of the other schools.
1. So what if they have taken themselves out of contention national titles? Besides, I'm not sure that's even true. Their basketball teams still make the NCAA tournament. And in football there is no "national championship" anyways but, having said that, their is nothing stopping AP voters from awarding an Ivy their championship if they saw fit.
And if the rest of the NCAA did play by the same athletic-scholarship-less standard then we probably would see those schools win some national titles.
2. What do merit scholarships have to do with anything? The exclusive product argument is nonsense. There would likely be plenty of student athletes excited about getting into OSU or Arkansas. Just as in the same way that their would be plenty excited to go to Michigan. These kids may not have the talent of the Denards or Cam Newtons of the world...but that is basically my point; that big time (i.e., money making) athletics should be divorced altogether from universities. Let the schools field teams of true student athletes.
- That is absolutely true. Ivy has never won a MBB championship, their last NCAA FB championship was a split title in 1950.
- The merit scholarships are absolutely an important note. Many schools, like Michigan, feel that athletics are a skill to be rewarded (i.e. a scholarship) the Ivy's have determined that their students are equal, and that one should not be rewarded because all of their students have great skill. As an aside, you really think that YSU (as MaizeandBlueWahoo talks about below) or Bowling Green can market their degree as an advantage like, say Harvard or Yale? By ignoring that you concede a major flaw in your argument that it is all similar.
As to your last point, how much money is given to the General Scholarship Fund at Michigan due to these big-time athletics? My guess is seven figures, though I'm not able to look that up right now.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:33 AM ^
The Ivies get donations the size of lottery prizes on a weekly basis and have endowments bigger than the GDP of Estonia. They can skim a little off the top here and there to fund athletics. Youngstown State et al. cannot do this. They need money from the sources you want to get rid of, like TV contracts, and they need it for more than just scholarships.
With respect to Youngstown State, how exactly are they reaping huge benefits from television contracts when I don't ever recall them being on national television anyways? I suppose that a few dollars trickle down, but a small school like that may be better off without a team altogether.
NCAA handouts, there is a Horizon League contract with ESPN (I've watched a few U-D games this season) and would you ever have heard of Youngstown State without them having a team?
but if when you have a moment spend some time watching Sir Ken Robinson speak on changing the educational paradigm. He spoke at TED conference last year.
<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zDZFcDGpL4U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
If you take away all athletic scholarships, right now, suddenly, every star athlete in the country is going to be offered significant "need based financial aid."
The beast that is college athletics isn't going to change because they suddenly can no longer offer athletic scholarships. In fact, Nader's proposal would likely make the whole situation worse. Is the NCAA suddenly going to be the arbiter of how much financial aid each athlete should receive? I highly doubt it. Which means, every big time program is going to be offering financial aid that covers tuition, room and board, and some will go over that and say that some "students" clearly need additional stipends on top of that. It will be a bidding war, a la, Cam Newton's recruitment.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:19 AM ^
The folly is assuming that the really at-risk kids will focus on something else if they aren't focusing on sports. Many won't focus on anything at all, which is why there are so many unathletic high school dropouts.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:40 AM ^
in america's stupid two party system he has no chance, but the guy is a noble man who runs on great platforms and he is also lebanese :). but i dont understand why the state doesnt fund American Universities better, my cousin goes to uofm and he pays 9Gs a semster for undergrad that is nuts. In Canada the max your paying for a public school 7Gs a year! and the government dishes out mad scholarship if your maintaining an A- or above. You guys are the richest country in the world, idk why your soical programs lag so hard.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:13 AM ^
Because people want lower taxes to keep money in their pockets, but they also want lots and lots of government-funded programs. Either of those means less money per program. Together they mean a lot less money per program.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:53 AM ^
I didn't comment on your comment (hello, awkward statement) so you would keep the ability to change it, but honestly I would shy away from calling for specific changes to social programs on MGoBlog.
I realize that Nader is a political figure, but if you read the vast majority of the posts in this thread, the posters stop short of talking directly about changes in government funding, the party system's effect of Nader's chances, or comparative politics.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:42 AM ^
was $2500 loaded, including the seatbelts and dash padding that Nader's revelations made mandatory. I had one, bought new. Fast in a straight line, but not a great handler. Newer cars are a lot more expensive, but also a lot better in a great many ways. But it's been nearly a half century since 1965, and one expects a bit of inflation.
Nader's always been consistent. He's got his vision of a sensible society, and my only gripe with it is that life under a Nader vision might be a bit bland.
We've had athletic scholarships in America for a very long time. They're great for some, not great for others. So it goes. But we aren't Canada, we have a somewhat different culture, so I'm not sure it makes sense to compare the US with someplace else.
A college experience is what we make of it. The value of a degree depends on what we do with it. Certainly one can go to college and avoid learning much. I can only speak for myself; I learned a lot at UM and have built on what I learned for a very long time since. The education I got there is something I cherish.
In many cases, former UM football players who didn't go NFL have done quite well for themselves. One example of a guy who took his football discipline to another place was Dave Brandon, but we all know of many more cases where guys who played went on to distinguished careers that they may not have had without the name recognition and education gained as athletes.
I'm not sure it's fair to say that a college degree has little value; at least in the case of good schools, it's a good indicator of future success. But since success requires hard work, patience, and a degree doesn't come with automatic benefits, there are those who won't make the most of it.
Still, it's important.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:52 AM ^
In 2009 dollars, that 2500 in 1965 is $16,822.06.
So more than double (if you're talking a fully loaded GT or the GT500) but there have also been huge increases in taxes. You're also looking at a ton more in production costs today because the labor force wasn't supporting retiree benefits in 1965 like they are now.