Student Athlete Essay

Academics and the Student-Athlete For starters, most student-athletes entering college are told what it means to be a student-athlete, but they never truly realize life as a student-athlete. They are confident and even cocky that they are ready to take on this challenge. In order to become a successful student-athlete it takes a lot of prioritizing, responsibility, motivation, and great time management skills. How are some student-athletes successful and some not? Big time sports are entrenched in higher education and have become the public face of the university. Colleges struggle to balance how much of the athletic program defines the university. For some, the pursuit for athletic success has compelled universities to compromise their academic

The so called student-athlete is expected to fill both rolls. That of an athlete and that of a student. However, their commitment to each of these rolls vary. At the division 1 level, especially in the high revenue generating sports, student-athletes are admitted for their potential to provide benefits for the institution. Influential critics of college athletes, Shulman and Bowen, the authors of "The Game of Life" conducted years of research across a total of thirty universities. They found that today 's athletes enter college less academically prepared and with different goals and values than their non-athlete peers. Some universities receive about ten applications for one place in an entering class. Universities have a difficulty making selections because there are so many applicants, and a lot of those applicants are close in qualifications. Colleges take a chance on certain students and when the decisions get more difficult, admissions staff are swayed in choosing students by what really matters to the institution. Statistics clearly illustrate that athletes receive preferential treatment in the admissions process. Athletes had a 48% higher chance of being admitted into college than the normal student

College sports like football and basketball have been huge money makers for corporations and college institutions for decades. According to Rheenen and Atwood, the exploitation of student-athletes has been a debatable controversy within higher education for over five decades. Even since the players have been labeled as "student-athletes" in 1950, academics and administrators have debated the extent to which the commercialization of college sports has turned student athletes into commodities, excluded from the free market while their coaches, institutions, and conferences reap the financial benefits. This is especially evident in the revenue generating sports of men 's basketball and football. Critics have shined a light on the surplus gains expropriated by universities on the backs of these student-athletes (Rheenen, Atwood). Furthermore, there is this massive contradiction between this so called arms race, and the implementation of the NCAA academic reform. On one hand, there is are institutions who are applying massive amounts of pressure on the coaching staff to produce wins, which in turn produces revenue for the school. James Duderstadt, a former college football player and President of the University of Michigan, "observed that universities exploit the athletic talents of college athletes for financial gain and public visibility, in part by tolerating low graduation rates and meaningless degrees in majors like general studies or