I got to talking on Instant Messenger with a friend of mine the other day about college sports and the farce that it creates about the ‘student-athlete’. I made the guess that because Major League Baseball already has a farm league and doesn’t really need the college crowd as much that baseball players would have a higher graduation rate than football or basketball. I went further to propose that basketball would have the LOWEST graduation rate of the big three sports.

Well I decided to go to the source and find out what their numbers say. Here it is the 2003 NCAA Graduation Rates Report

According to the report if you just glance at it, student-athletes have almost the EXACT same graduation percentages as all students and my belief that male athletes in the big 3 sports aren’t getting an education is bunk. But after looking closer I see I was sadly correct.

Looking at the chart is becomes clear than women’s athletics is doing something right. They actually graduate women athletes at rates ABOVE that of the normal student rate. Women athletes graduate at approximately 71% compared to the average woman student rate of 63%. Then you look at the men’s rate and you see that the average male athlete graduates at around 53% compared to all men at 60%.

Looking even closer we can see the big 3 rates as:
Football 51%
Baseball 44%
Basketball 36%
Women’s Basketball 66%

As you can see the rates are dismal for male athletes. I think if only one basketball player in 3 can actually graduate it is time for something to change DRASTICALLY.

Now my pet project has always been to remove the big 3 from college athletics altogether and change what exists now to some sort of semi-pro league but that’s just me. What do the reader’s out there think should be done about big 3 athletics if anything?