Athletics as a Gateway
The NCAA reports that nearly 500,000 students compete in its athletics programs nationwide, yet only “a select few” move on to compete at the Olympics or professional levels.
Hundreds of student athletes have passed through my classroom doors over the years and have similar dreams to compete at the highest levels of their sport. They tend to relish in these demanding schedules, though those who attempt the treacherous three often fail. That is, those who attempt to compete in their sport, complete a full-load of coursework each semester, and then attempt to knock down a part-time job to pay living expenses. Academic demands and athletic seasons rarely complement each other, so something suffers.
Many on athletic scholarships prioritize their sport, understandably. To pay the bills and avoid loans, they schedule 10-20 hours of part-time work tending to gas station customers, retail, or working the food service industry. What suffers is academics, oftentimes jeopardizing their academic eligibility. In robust academic programs, very few find success with this strategy.
Many students and their families look to athletic scholarships as a means to help fund an education. For those pursuing that strategy, females might consider ice hockey (26.2%), lacrosse (12.5%), and field hockey (10.1%), while males might consider lacrosse (12.8%), ice hockey (12.3%), and baseball (7.5%) when considering their probability of earning an athletic scholarship.
What is interesting is that the success rate for student-athletes far surpasses non-athletes. From 2002 to 2018, the graduation success rate rose from 74% to 88%. What is most striking is that the typical graduation success rate, defined as those who complete their studies and earn a degree within six years, hovers around 50-60%. Indeed, we can surmise that college athletes are significantly more successful in terms of degree completion than non-athletes.
From an international perspective, only a handful of other countries offer collegiate level sports; as such, foreign students find the US system most appealing in terms of providing an opportunity to continue to play and a pathway to higher-level competition. The US system has a fine-tuned system of recruitment, both for US teams and for foreign teams. As such, US institutions may find themselves in a unique position to draw international student athletes, which provides diverse perspectives on competition, motivation, and rewards.
