Educational Performance and Athletic Success: An Economist View of Scholarship Distribution in College Football

Abstract

Our paper proposes the use of NCAA Graduation Success Rates (GSR) and Academic Progress Reports (APR) to partially reallocate athletic scholarships among NCAA college football teams. Specifically, it would reward academically high performing institutions with additional scholarships and penalize poorly performing institutions with lost scholarships. Scholarships would be transferrable in a market through which those who lose scholarships are able to purchase scholarships from those who were awarded additional ones. The proposal is illustrated using cluster analysis of data for cohort years between 2004 and 2011.