How Many College Athletes Can't Read Beyond A Grade School Level?

[Formaldehyde]

Mary Willingham, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, thinks that 8% of their basketball and football athletes read below the 4th grade level, and 60% read between the 4th grade and 8th grade level.

Colbert Sport Report - Uneducated College Athletes & Peyton Manning's Sponsor Shout-out

We might as well go over to Glenwood Elementary right up the street and let all the 4th graders enter.

The scholarship agreement is often fraudulent. We promise an education in exchange for talent. And that is not what we are providing many of these people.

How did UNC respond to these allegations?

UNC Stops Professor Mary Willingham From Researching Athletes' Low Reading Levels

Folt, a former interim president at Dartmouth, is in her first academic year after replacing Holden Thorp. Thorp left last year amid the fallout of an NCAA investigation into the football program in 2010 that eventually led to the discovery of fraud in an academic department with classes featuring significant athlete enrollments. The irregularities ranged from no-show classes to unauthorized grade changes stretching back to 1997 and has even led to the recent indictment of the retired department chairman who was paid to teach a lecture course that didn't meet and was instead treated as an independent study requiring a research paper.

In an interview with The News and Observer of Raleigh on Wednesday, former football player Michael McAdoo — who was ruled permanently ineligible for academic misconduct during the NCAA probe — said school academic advisors guided him to four of the department's no-show classes in what he called "a scam."

Does this come as a surprise to anybody?

Do you think minimum academic eligibility standards will ever be upheld in the top sports universities and colleges? Or do you think they already do?

Why do even prestigious universities like UNC have special "no show" classes for its athletes where their papers are clearly written by others?

If you think the research is accurate, how do the athletes get past the SAT and ACT tests? Do they have others take the tests for them? Or is there some other method where their scores don't even come close to reflecting their actual reading levels?

 

[warpus]

The scholarship agreement is often fraudulent. We promise an education in exchange for talent. And that is not what we are providing many of these people.

Well, no, this isn't true, is it? The deal is they get someone who will play for their football team and bring in money in exchange for a "diploma". Nobody ever said anything about an education.

 

[JollyRoger]

At UNC, a good portion of their football team doesn't even play at the 4th grade level.

 

[Antilogic]

Does this come as a surprise to anybody?

Do you think minimum academic eligibility standards will ever be upheld in the top sports universities and colleges? Or do you think they already do?

Not really a surprise, collegiate sport programs (especially Division I schools) are run for prestige, justifying the construction of nice facilities, and (in the case of football and basketball) generating revenue.

And as long as they can get away with it, they will. Easy classes, fraudulent papers, that's all part of the game so long as you can attract the top players.

At UNC, a good portion of their football team doesn't even play at the 4th grade level.

And that's how it's done, folks.

 

[Tahuti]

Breaking news: Special interests cloud college education! Sports included!

 

[downtown]

I have no problem believing that this is the case at some schools (I've interviewed athletes who are probably at around this academic level), but I don't think that low achievement at UNC level is systemic. Those who follow sports news closely know that UNC has been caught up in a huge academic cheating scandal, with wholesale grade-altering and sham course creating. People may go to jail over it. Their university president was fired over it.

Do I think this is the case across all athletes? Of course not. Some athletes, namely tennis players, gymnasts and swimmers, may actually perform at a HIGHER academic level than their general student population peers, given the relative higher income status of those athletes, the relative lower number of full scholarship available, and the fact that they get access to significant tutoring. I'd have to look through my notes, but I vaguely remember reading an NCAA account saying as much.

The question that I think people really care about though, is whether football and basketball players at major D1 institutions are up to the right academic level. The degree to which this is true depends a lot on the team and the conference. At some of the lower level HBCU schools, I'd say it's entirely possible that large swaths of their programs are *really* below what we would consider "academically ready for college". They draw nearly entirely from poor backgrounds, and have very little resources for remediation.

I also know that there are large programs that are recruiting kids who should not be in college. The NCAA actually has some pretty punitive penalties for signing kids that have no chance of academic success, and they're getting even more stiff over the next two years, so the incentive to "cheat" is going down, but it's still there. The excellent inside look on college football from one of the NYT staff writers, The System, singled out Missouri and Florida State has two programs that have historically skirted the rules. I know other programs in the Big 12 and the SEC do as well.

There are other programs that do a pretty good job of graduating players AND performing at a reasonably high level as well though. The APR does a reasonably good job of showing who is graduating players and keeping them academically accountable, and several programs, like Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State, Georgia Tech and Wisconsin, have found ways to both be successful on the field, and have players graduate with meaningful degrees. It can be done.

I know better than most that the NCAA is a corrupt organization, and that many schools do not live up to their academic ideals. I think malfeasance at North Carolina's level is closer to the exception, rather than the rule, though. I hope that all of the responsible parties are fired.

 

[Takhisis]

At UNC, a good portion of their football team doesn't even play at the 4th grade level.

And that's how it's done, folks.

Just like a double-edged sword, JR can hit you when coming and going.

 

[BvBPL]

Concerns about scholastic ability of incoming freshmen are by no means limited to student athletes. Of course student athletes do tend to get the short end of the stick overall.

 

[Zelig]

If your universities aren't producing good graduates, highschool graduates can leave the country for school, and employers can preferentially hire people who haven't gone to school in the US.

Free market!

 

[JollyRoger]

Just down the road from UNC, they recruit "athletes" that are good at lacrosse with the financial backing to get away with rape.

 

[KmDubya]

Just down the road from UNC, they recruit "athletes" that are good at lacrosse with the financial backing to get away with rape.

Oh please not this myth again.

Why not bring up Tawana Brawley too?

 

[JollyRoger]

The thing about the Duke boys is that is brought many righties to see the potential abuses of prosecutors. Too bad the vision seems limited to a narrow range of circumstances.

 

[GamezRule]

I realize that this is discussing D1 schools, but how does this apply to D2 and D3 schools? I know where I go (a D3 school) football players are held to a higher academic standard and there are enforced study times. My friends on the football team had no life outside of practice and homework during the season.

 

[classical_hero]

Just down the road from UNC, they recruit "athletes" that are good at lacrosse with the financial backing to get away with rape.

Even the person who brought the claims said they weren't true.

 

[JollyRoger]

Are you claiming the accuser has credibility?

 

[downtown]

I realize that this is discussing D1 schools, but how does this apply to D2 and D3 schools? I know where I go (a D3 school) football players are held to a higher academic standard and there are enforced study times. My friends on the football team had no life outside of practice and homework during the season.

I'd say that 100% depends on the school. The biggest incentives to flagrantly "cheat" aren't as strong at the D3 level, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I don't think there is a reason to think it happens as often as it might at say, Auburn.

 

[caketastydelish]

Are you claiming the accuser has credibility?

Lol. It was already proven the accuser was false. I love your "one liners" JR.

 

[JollyRoger]

It just seems to me that if everyone is now agreeing with a person with no credibility, then there may be something amiss.

 

[caketastydelish]

It just seems to me that if everyone is now agreeing with a person with no credibility, then there may be something amiss.

We already knew her accusation was false even before she admitted it herself. That was just the last nail in the coffin.

 

[JollyRoger]

Yeah, I don't consider people credible until they agree with me either.