AS A particularly exciting NCAA tournament winds to its conclusion, much noise is being made about the graduation rates of men's basketball players.
As it has for the past few years, the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports released its "Keeping Score When It Counts: Graduation Rates for 2005 NCAA Men's and Women's Division I Basketball Tournament Teams," which, as in past years, shows what seem to be shockingly low graduation rates, including eight percent of basketball players for Michigan State and zero percent for LSU. As in past years, these figures have given rise to much hand-wringing among commentators: "Clearly, a devil's bargain is being struck," declared the Rev. Jesse Jackson, while Brian Gilmore of the Progressive Media Project argued that colleges have a "moral responsibility" to graduate student athletes from college. Many commentators have called for scholarship reductions for schools that fail to graduate 50 percent or more of their athletes.
The University is one of the best-performing schools in term of graduation rates, as student athletes here graduate at a rate of 83 percent, not far from the overall University graduation rate of 92 percent. Associate Athletic Director for Academic Affairs Tomas Jimenez said in an interview that this reflects a widespread University commitment to students and is similar to programs in place for the student body generally. Jimenez suggested that graduation rates reflect the characteristics of individual schools.
There are, however, indications that concerns about graduation rates as a national "scandal" are overblown. For one thing, there are serious methodological concerns with the way the NCAA compiles its data. Richard Lapchick, who authored the Central Florida report, has bluntly written, "It should be pointed out that studies of graduation rates are flawed, and the manner in which graduation rates are currently compiled is unfair."This is because anyone who transfers from a given school, even in good academic standing, is counted as a "non-graduate" just as surely as someone who flunks out of school. Transfer graduation rates are calculated separately by the NCAA. As Jimenez said, a transfer who graduates with high honors from another institution is counted as "0 for 1" in terms of the graduation rate.
Furthermore, given that the graduation rates in question are being compiled for each individual school over only a five-year period, and that each school will have no more than a handful of seniors on their basketball teams in a given year, these unfair reporting practices will tend to skew the statistics quite significantly.
Indeed, reference to transfer rates can explain much of the low graduation rate. Transferring is endemic to big-time college athletics and is most often motivated by the firing of a coach or complaints about playing time.
Also, few commentators have pointed out the rigor of the academic requirements the NCAA currently imposes. The NCAA currently requires that a given student athlete complete an average of 12 credits a semester over every semester that student athlete has been enrolled in college, and requires significant progress each year toward course requirements for a degree. Otherwise, the student athlete will be ineligible for sports. That is, the current system already imposes stringent academic requirements and punishes schools and students in a fair way: Without completing a set number of credits, that athlete is ineligible, and thus is not "exploited."
But we should also question the moral underpinnings of the sense of outrage expressed by so many commentators. It is true that colleges receive much revenue from an NCAA tournament appearance, but this cuts both ways; the student athletes receive a lot of exposure as well. And it should ultimately be the student athlete's responsibility to maintain his or her academic standing. College provides an opportunity to succeed, not a blank check or a guaranteed bright future. If the commentators are correct and college basketball players truly are not graduating, it is time for the student athletes to start taking responsibility for their own education. Often, the lure of professional athletics or a frustration over lack of playing time will induce star players to drop out of college, yet this reflects a cold economic calculation that will best be made by the individual affected.
We can still enjoy March Madness with a clean conscience given these low graduation rates. Perhaps it would be ideal if a higher proportion of student athletes would stay at the same institution for four years and exit with a degree, but that is a choice that must rest ultimately with the student athlete, not the institution.
Noah Peters' column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at npeters@cavalierdaily.com.
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