As March Madness hits and the public’s attention is on college basketball’s NCAA Tournament, few spectators know just how much the public subsidizes college sports. Within the University of North … Continue reading “March Madness Means Skyhigh Athletics Spending”
More money flows to arenas and building upgrades. The hunt for recruits gets more competitive. University presidents brag about how their new program will make the school nationally known. But … Continue reading “Collegiate Esports Programs Are Here to Stay”
Often, the strongest criticisms of higher education come from insiders. One insider is Daniel Johnson, who retired as president of the University of Toledo in 2006 after an academic career … Continue reading “Former University President Nails Many of Higher Education’s Ills”
In college athletics, student-athletes have few protections against coaching demands that may put their health at risk. As the parent of a college athlete who was left with a chronic … Continue reading “Protecting Student-Athletes in the UNC System”
While money is not the root of all evil, it is undeniably responsible for the transformation of the University of Oregon (UO). It changed from a typical state flagship where … Continue reading “How Nike Transformed the University of Oregon”
Many colleges are setting up their student-athletes for failure. Whether one looks to the long-term neurological health risks that young athletes are subject to, or the myriad cases of academic … Continue reading “A Unique Opportunity for Athletics Reform”
It is increasingly apparent that college basketball serves as an unofficial minor league for the National Basketball Association (NBA) rather than as an extracurricular activity for students. And it is … Continue reading “How Colleges Could Benefit from an NBA Rule Change”
Kentuckians were forced to consider potential problems with intercollegiate athletics when both the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky were implicated in the recent FBI probe into possibly … Continue reading “Gaming the System: How Kentucky Spends Funding for Students on Athletics”
Remember the huge University of North Carolina athletics scandal, whereby the university’s athletics department managed to arrange for star football and basketball players to get preferential treatment to such an … Continue reading “How Does a University Advance an ‘Athlete-friendly’ Curriculum?”
The year 2000 saw the publication of Beer and Circus, the notable book by former Indiana University professor Murray Sperber. It was a big step forward for the analysis of … Continue reading “Sperber’s ‘Beer and Circus’—An Unintentional Argument for Community College?”