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[mbyron]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

And those numbers are effectively bogus since a player who transfers elsewhere and graduades counts as not graduating for the original school. Likewise for players leaving for the NBA. And you must also consider how many non-athelete student meet the same standards. 1 transfer a year and you're down 20-30% as most schools only have 3-5 recruits in any given year.

Camron, the numbers might not be perfect, but there's no denying that universities make millions off the backs of these "student-athletes" in football and basketball especially, while giving them virtually nothing. How many of these young scholars graduate with crap degrees in "General Studies" and the like? Puh-lease.

IMO, the solution is to create a proper measure of graduation rates that takes into account transfers and "real degree" programs -- so that a degree from Michigan, say, held by a football player is worth what an ordinary student gets.

If a program doesn't get its athletes real degrees, then that school needs to hire them as employees. They're proto-pros anyway in many cases, why not recognize that fact? They should get contracts like the pros do, and since they're working for a university, they'll also get a tuition benefit in case they want to take classes.

This approach would also eliminate a lot of the sleaze in college hoops. Once the kids are employees, the pressure to get them "gifts" from "boosters" goes away. They can afford their own bling and sweet rides and whatnot. And if a kid wants to go to class, he can.

There's more benefits -- I've been thinking about this since I was at a famous football school many years ago -- but you get the idea.