I’m supposed to express my opinion as to whether I support the “reclassification of our university’s Athletics to NCAA Division I” (from NCAA Division II). Does anybody know what this means? More specifically, what costs a university more, Division I or Division II? Or does this make no difference for the finances?
I really hate being asked questions without being given any information on what the questions mean and what the possible answers imply.
Clarissa's Blog 
Division I schools can give scholarships specifically for athletics whereas Division II schools cannot – they can only give a lot of academic scholarships to gifted athletes with mysteriously low grade point averages, if you gather my meaning
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Aha. OK, this is getting a little more clear. So what are these “scholarships for athletics”?
This is like a different world for me.
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the school pays the tuition for people who go there to play sports. this is of course subsidized by those who pay full tuition
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Say no. It diverts money to athletics on the theory that this will make money for the school but it does not, although it makes money for the town and theoretically gives school more visibility such that indirectly it makes money. It serves professional sports by turning the school into a training ground for them at taxpayers’ expense, and at its own.
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OK, that’s all I needed to hear. Thank you! I had a vague hunch I was opposed to this but now I have a well-worded reason.
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Yup! I would say no too if I were you. I was in a NCAA Division 1 school before, now in a Division 2 school. Professors’ lives are so much better in my current school now that they don’t have to constantly make accommodations for the athletes, who are usually insincere about any kind of academic pursuit, and tend to miss important classes and exams. The worst are the coaches, who are known to call professors and plead with them to let the athletes pass!
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my understanding is that professors at colleges with strong athletic programs feel great pressure to help athletes succeed, including at the expense of academic integrity
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We haven’t had this problem here and I don’t look forward to encountering it in the future. For now, we are supposed to file regular reports about every student-athlete specifying whether we think that athletics interferes with their studies in any way. Until now, sports have never been privileged.
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The problem is that American football (and basketball?) have no functioning minor league system (like baseball and soccer in europe do). This vastly increases the importance of university football (it afterall originated at universities) and to a slightly lesser extent basketball. The universities function as de facto minor leagues (minus relegation) where talent is scouted and the only way to the major league is through a university.
The horribly corrupt NCAA refuses to openly admit this clear reality. So rather than let universities recruit and _pay_ young athletes to play for them, they force universites to pretend they’re real students (although many of them do not have the slightest intellectual motivation) while not paying them so many of them leave the university broke and with no viable career. It’s all done to keep the pipline of NFL NBA stars going while being able to keep the myth of the student athlete alive.
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It’s good for the sporting prestige but bad for the academic level.
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