The Effects of the Economic Model of College Sport on Athlete Educational Experience

Abstract

The purpose of this paper 1 is to offer an overview of how the current economic model prevalent in intercollegiate sport affects the athlete experience. The author outlines the multiple problems facing intercollegiate athletic departments as they seek to finance their activities and concludes by suggesting that financial stabil-ity requires recognizing the overall financial problems of higher education which form the context for athletic financing. My thesis for understanding how the economic model of college sport affects athletes' experiences—the assigned topic of this paper—is very simple. On every campus, we must begin by considering the institution's overall finances, all of which have been squeezed by the recession and which will continue to be squeezed in the future. And then, we must find a new model that acknowledges the new overall institutional reality. We must do this because virtually every institution across the country, no matter how prudently it operates its intercollegiate athletic program, uses some level of institutional and/or student-fee support to balance the athletic budget. Furthermore, faculty, administrators, and students across the country are increasingly skeptical about continuing this support as institutional budgets, and students' finances 2