About the Author

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg served for 30 years as a university president. He is now president emeritus and university professor at the George Washington University, where he teaches courses on the university presidency in America. He is also an adviser to Korn/Ferry International, where he is helping to find the next generation of university leadership. In June 2008 Simon and Schuster will release his new book Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out On Higher Education. B.A. Columbia, M.P.A. Harvard, J.D. Yale. Fifteen honorary degrees. A swell guy. But not much of a dancer.

He will blog about issues torn from the headlines dealing with higher education. Contemporary topics of pressing, current concern. And some serious matters too.

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The Rich Get Richer

In his New York Times article today, Pete Thamel tells us in the first paragraph of the story that “…like all the universities in the Ivy League, Harvard does not award athletic scholarships.” I think it is worth asking what that means.

When Harvard charged tuition in the same manner as other institutions, athletes from financially challenged backgrounds who succeeded in being admitted to Harvard were awarded financial aid for justifiable fiscal reasons but athletes from middle and upper middle as well as wealthy families were obliged to pay tuition. Thus many talented sports-minded youngsters turned away from Harvard to matriculate at other institutions with robust intercollegiate athletic programs that proffered athletic tuition scholarships.

Now that Harvard has functionally done away with tuition for all those families that earn less than $180,000 a year, it seems a bit cute to say that Harvard does not award athletic scholarships. They may not be called athletic scholarships but if you give them to athletes that doesn’t make them any less athletic scholarships, money being fungible.

Among the other benefits accruing to Harvard and Yale as a result of their new generosity is a repositioning of their athletic teams, competing for youngsters who can go head-to-head with the Big Ten, the ACC and all the other major conferences. It is a subtle collateral benefit unremarked upon in the media but likely to be revealed in the win-loss columns and N.C.A.A. tournaments in the years to come. Not only are the richer institutions going to be able to cream the very best students but also they will increasingly be able to attract the fastest, the biggest, the tallest and the strongest.

It is worth asking whether the N.C.A.A. rules that apply to universities and student athletes offering and receiving athletic scholarships will also bind students going to Harvard and other Ivy leagues institutions who are nominally not getting aid because they are athletes but apparently being treated like everyone else in their entering class.

Comments

1. One would assume Harvard still has admission standards. I doubt a functionally illiterate jock will be among the pool of students Harvard will be recruiting.

   One would hope that Harvard would recruit a bright, potentially working class [or poorer]athlete who has the scholarly aptitude to match his or her athletic prowess.

   At least one hopes.

   You seem to be presuming otherwise.

   — TM · Mar 3, 01:59 AM · #

2. It’s true that Harvard still has admissions standards, but other schools with high admissions standards have succeeded in big-time athletics while offering scholarships – Duke’s basketball team is the most prominent example. I’m not sure how much of a benefit this will be in football (the NCAA “limits” Div. I football scholarships to 85), but it might make a big difference in smaller team sports like basketball or soccer.

   In fact, it might give Harvard an advantage. For example, the NCAA limits Div. I soccer scholarships to 9.9 per year – not enough to field a full team, much less a second string. Same for volleyball and water polo (4.5 scholarships each). Harvard could, in theory, field an entire team of “scholarship athletes” in these sports while, say, Ohio State would be limited. Athletes with decent grades and test scores will likely give Harvard a much longer second look than they would have previously.

   — Micheal Hickerson · Mar 3, 08:01 AM · #

3. I’m surprised that Trachtenberg never realized that colleges without athletic scholarships are perfectly free to give need-based aid to student-athletes on the same basis as other colleges. The NCAA can’t impose any limits on this aid. However, Harvard is unlikely to attract top athletes in the money sports because a) unlike athletic scholarships, need-based aid usually doesn’t cover room and board; b) academic standards are still too high at Harvard, even though athletes get huge preferences; c) the quality of Div III athletics is too low for anyone who hopes to become a pro athlete.

   — John K. Wilson · Mar 4, 09:52 AM · #

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