What do you think will change in online (and face-to-face) education?

[dismalist]

... Really all that matters is that we're putting out graduates that get good jobs. To the extent that athletics makes that possible, I'm all for it, even if the students pay a little extra.

How does athletics make it possible for graduates to get good jobs [outside of athletics]?

[Wahoo Redux]

We have taught at a Div-III and now at a lower-tier D-1AA school.  Sports were / are bad at both.  We had only meager scholarships at the Div-III and I don't remember people caring about sports one way or the other.  The first complaint about subsidized sports I heard coming from a student was here at our D-1AA commuter school.  Our students from the depressed part of the world we live in are very practical people and not in school to party.  The stadium is usually empty on Saturday.  I know we have a basketball team because I had a couple players in my class once.  The only time our teams make the news is when one of the coaches says something politically incorrect (which happens more than you'd think).  I cannot comment on the importance of sports to either schools, but they cannot be that substantial.

On the other hand, I will concede that sports probably did a lot for both my undergrad and grad alma maters, both of which are D-1 / R-1 big football schools. 

I guess the point is that eliminating athletic subsidies for students at a place like ours, many of whom are poor, almost all of whom work, sometime full-time, would save $7K to $10K from their college bills.   The situation may not be the same everywhere; here I think it would be an excellent change.

[dismalist]

I guess the point is that eliminating athletic subsidies students at a place like ours, many of whom are poor, almost all of whom work, sometime full-time, $7K to $10K from their college bills.   The situation may not be the same everywhere; here I think it would be an excellent change.

Who is poor, work, sometimes full-time, the athletic students or the others? [Again, serious question.]

[Wahoo Redux]

I guess the point is that eliminating athletic subsidies students at a place like ours, many of whom are poor, almost all of whom work, sometime full-time, $7K to $10K from their college bills.   The situation may not be the same everywhere; here I think it would be an excellent change.

Who is poor, work, sometimes full-time, the athletic students or the others? [Again, serious question.]

Often both student-athletes and the regular student body are financially challenged (sorry,you read that before I edited), although we do have a fair number of middle-class students as well.  We are located deep in part of the country that Trump promised to save. 

[dismalist]

I guess the point is that eliminating athletic subsidies students at a place like ours, many of whom are poor, almost all of whom work, sometime full-time, $7K to $10K from their college bills.   The situation may not be the same everywhere; here I think it would be an excellent change.

Who is poor, work, sometimes full-time, the athletic students or the others? [Again, serious question.]

Often both student-athletes and the regular student body are financially challenged (sorry,you read that before I edited), although we do have a fair number of middle-class students as well.  We are located deep in part of the country that Trump promised to save.

I completely sympathize, and from the bottom of my heart.

But let us think: Is it efficient or just or otherwise reasonable for poor people to give money to other poor people who may or may not have some athletic prowess?

Alas, I think not.

[Wahoo Redux]

I guess the point is that eliminating athletic subsidies students at a place like ours, many of whom are poor, almost all of whom work, sometime full-time, $7K to $10K from their college bills.   The situation may not be the same everywhere; here I think it would be an excellent change.

Who is poor, work, sometimes full-time, the athletic students or the others? [Again, serious question.]

Often both student-athletes and the regular student body are financially challenged (sorry,you read that before I edited), although we do have a fair number of middle-class students as well.  We are located deep in part of the country that Trump promised to save.

I completely sympathize, and from the bottom of my heart.

But let us think: Is it efficient or just or otherwise reasonable for poor people to give money to other poor people who may or may not have some athletic prowess?

Alas, I think not.

Agreed.

[marshwiggle]

But let us think: Is it efficient or just or otherwise reasonable for poor people to give money to other poor people who may or may not have some athletic prowess?

Alas, I think not.

Coming from  outside the USA, where sports shcolarships and all of that are much less of a thing, it occurred to me how totally bizarre it would sound if you reversed things. For instance:
"Wow! You got A's in high school math! Come to our university to do math and we'll guarantee you a spot on our football team any team you want as well!"
The idea that being really good at one thing (sports) entitles one to a completely different thing (academic programs that have nothing to do with sports)  that happens to be done at the same place seems odd. (Note that accepting those students into Phys. Ed, Kinesiology, etc. does make sense, since it has some relevance.)

[tuxthepenguin]

... Really all that matters is that we're putting out graduates that get good jobs. To the extent that athletics makes that possible, I'm all for it, even if the students pay a little extra.

How does athletics make it possible for graduates to get good jobs [outside of athletics]?

The argument, which may or may not be correct, is that sports brings in exposure and scholarships. LSU won a football championship, so they got free advertising and employers view them as a better institution. I've heard it said of Clemson numerous times that they recruit better students, recruit more students from out of the region, and place students in good jobs nationally due to their football success. Utah moving to the Pac 12 supposedly gave them exposure they wouldn't have otherwise received.

We have taught at a Div-III and now at a lower-tier D-1AA school.
...

I guess the point is that eliminating athletic subsidies for students at a place like ours, many of whom are poor, almost all of whom work, sometime full-time, would save $7K to $10K from their college bills.

If you mean over the four years they're in college, I can believe it. Those at the bottom end of D-1AA spend a lot and get very little return - all the expense and none of the exposure.

[mamselle]

My undergraduate school viewed any year they didn't beat Michigan and go to the Rose Bowl a dismal failure. Other sports were less rabidly, but still avidly, followed.

It had excellent academic standards apart from that, although the "on dit" was that the school supported the athletics, not the other way around. Now, I presume, the scholastic standards remain high, but I find the flags, mascots, and pom-poms all over campus to be sickening--it's much worse than when I attended.

My graduate schools had no football (one got rid of football but still had hockey; one is now sadly trying to inject some rah-rah sports into what I always appreciated as a reasonable, well-structured humanities-focused program).

I did benefit from the fact that, in addition to hockey, my undergrad school had a good figure-skating program.

So there's that.

M.

[spork]

Not quite sure what thread this best applies (and I don't want to create a new one), but Matt Reed at IHE has proposed an interesting thought experiment on opportunity costs in higher edu:

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/possible-research-topic%E2%80%A6-hint-hint%E2%80%A6.

[spork]

President of Brown says universities should reopen, blah blah blah:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html.

Good luck getting cash-strapped schools to purchase digital contact tracing technology and getting their students use it.

I bet we see some campuses reopen so that athletics can operate while instruction remains online.

[Cheerful]

President of Brown says universities should reopen, blah blah blah:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html.

Good luck getting cash-strapped schools to purchase digital contact tracing technology and getting their students use it.

I bet we see some campuses reopen so that athletics can operate while instruction remains online.

Blah, blah, blah is right. She focuses almost exclusively on students.  Faculty and staff are an afterthought?  She's quite optimistic about the ability of university health centers to manage outbreaks.

Your point about athletics is certainly plausible.  Had not thought of that.

[marshwiggle]

President of Brown says universities should reopen, blah blah blah:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html.

Good luck getting cash-strapped schools to purchase digital contact tracing technology and getting their students use it.

I bet we see some campuses reopen so that athletics can operate while instruction remains online.

Blah, blah, blah is right. She focuses almost exclusively on students.  Faculty and staff are an afterthought?  She's quite optimistic about the ability of university health centers to manage outbreaks.

And the two main crowded spaces she talks about are large lectures (which could be online) and parties (which aren't essential), while omitting labs, which are impossible to replace or skip for certain fields.

[Cheerful]

The quality of the op-ed is not aligned with all of her titles in the bio, to the extent that collection of titles generally indicates expertise and analytical skills.

[dr_codex]

President of Brown says universities should reopen, blah blah blah:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/26/opinion/coronavirus-colleges-universities.html.

Good luck getting cash-strapped schools to purchase digital contact tracing technology and getting their students use it.

I bet we see some campuses reopen so that athletics can operate while instruction remains online.

Blah, blah, blah is right. She focuses almost exclusively on students.  Faculty and staff are an afterthought?  She's quite optimistic about the ability of university health centers to manage outbreaks.

And the two main crowded spaces she talks about are large lectures (which could be online) and parties (which aren't essential), while omitting labs, which are impossible to replace or skip for certain fields.

Labs are a big problem. Any hands-on training, by definition, carries risk of exposure and transmission.

I know of at least one governing body for professional licensure that is allowing online delivery of, and assessment of, knowledge components. But they will still require in-person instruction and assessment.

I agree with Spork that athletics will drive a lot of social clumping. (Hello, Georgia! And you have to think that the Auburn/'Mama game is circled on the Governor's calendar.) Some professional athletes have the clout -- and the money -- to refuse to play, or to play in front of live audiences, but I very much doubt that kind of resistance is going to come from the D1 schools. It's no accident that a lot of the flappiest hand-wringing has concerned some students losing a year of NCAA eligibility.

I've told this story before, but when I was trying to get my head around US colleges and universities, my mentor suggested, po-faced, studying the structure of NCAA affiliations, rather than Carnegie classification.