In recent discussion of college athletics, a controversial issue has been whether the athletic programs in colleges and universities should be better regulated by the NCAA. On the one hand, some argue that the NCAA should not interfere with college sports past making sure no school is cheating during athletic competitions. On the other hand, others argue that the NCAA should regulate everything having to do with college athletics, including academics. In the words of Drake Group, “They’re [student athletes] full-time athletes and part-time students.” According to this view, collegiate athletes are spending more time on their sport and much less time on their academics. In sum the issue is whether athletes should be regulated in their academics by the NCAA. Because student athletes should be students first, the NCAA should regulate academics for collegiate athletes more rigidly and provide better suited rules and resources for athletes to help them balance their academics with their sport. 

There are certain previsions put into place by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that requires athletes to maintain a certain academic standard in order to participate in games. Before these athletes even go to college, they also have to meet certain requirements in high school and once the athletes are in college, they have to maintain a minimum GPA and Academic Progress Rate (APR) score. The APR was introduced in 2003 and it measures the academic performance of college athletes (Roach 1). This measure does have an impact on player eligibility for example, during the 2006- 2007 season, fifteen percent of football and basketball teams fell under the APR limits and had certain sanctions placed on these teams (Roach 1). Some of these penalties include, “a reduction in allowable practice time, a band in post-season competition, and the number of scholarships lost for both football and basketball” (Smith 103). 

It is often said that it is the coaches who encourage their players to cheat; however, schools play a very large role in academic fraud as well. One school that was involved in major academic fraud was The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The school went as far as to enroll their athletes in “fake classes” to make their players acceptable to compete (Thomason). The school had been allowing this to happen since 1993, a fact which shows the extent to which one colleges are willing to go to break the rules to allow their players to perform. UNC Chapel Hill only received a one year probation for their scandal which some might argue was too light of a punishment given how long their ruse went on for (Thomason). Schools will sometimes bend the rules by allowing certain students to be emitted to the schools. Schools enroll athletes that are not ready for college curriculum just so they can play for a team (Reed). This means that they are allowing students who do not meet the requirements to attend these schools to enroll but not to be educated, but to allow them to play on teams. Other ways that schools are allowing their athletes to cheat is by not regulating their online classes. Some athletes will take online classes and have other students complete the work for them. Teachers have also gotten involved in academic fraud by going as far as to change athletes grades to keep their GPA’s to where they need to be. A recent example of this kind of scandal happened at Weber State University where professors had changed athlete’s grades (Wolverton). The rules that the NCAA has in place need to have a greater penalty because, “deterrence does not work if sanctions are not effective in reducing some outcomes: if a punishment cannot be shown to result in a measurable loss to the offending program, other schools will feel less constrained to follow rules” (Smith 98). Smith is basically saying that until major punishments and sanctions are placed on athletic programs by the NCAA, these school’s administration are going to continue allowing academic fraud exist in these schools. 

The schools are not the only party to blame for the increase in academic dishonesty; coaches often play a role in helping athletes cheat. All coaches feel a tremendous amount of pressure from the schools to make sure their team is going to win. Usually, coaches will only be fired if their athletes are not winning games and they are not ranked very high, they almost never get fired because their athletes grades are too low. Most coaches have a win, “at-all-cost” ethic which means that they will do whatever needs to be done in order to win, which includes encouraging players to cheat so they are able to play. As a result, some coaches care more about winning games then making sure that their players are receiving their education (Roach 1). By focusing on all of a coaches’ responsibility to their players, Roach over looks the deeper problems that coaches are put in a very difficult situation when schools are putting this much pressure on the coaches. Coaches can either spend all of the players time practicing and making them a better athlete, which causes them to not be able to spend any time on academics, or a coach can try and give equal attention to athletics and academics and might possibly lose their job because the team is not winning. Coaches will go to great lengths to make their players eligible to play. Some ways that the NCAA has discovered includes coaches going to teachers directly and try to get the professor to change the student’s grade for them. Other ways include a coach approaching another student and asking them to do an athlete’s work for them (Wolverton). Either way, the emphasis on winning drives coaches to extreme measures for their athletes. 

The main reason for all the corruption boils down to money. Schools are businesses and their main objective is to make money. One way of bringing in large amounts of revenue is through a winning athletics department. If the school’s athletes are not eligible to play, this effects their profits which is why the school bends the rules for their athletes. “A successful college team promotes future applications to the college, may increase alumni donations and enhance the political influence of college administrations” (Avery 3). Coaches are not exempt from the motive of making money. Some coaches will encourage their players to cheat because they will have a higher salary if the team is doing better i.e. all of the students are eligible to play. As an incentive for coaches to push their players to win, they will receive promotions and raises for doing well during the season however, coaches will not get anything if their athletes are excelling in their academics (Roach 1). Randall Smith suggests that schools break the rules because they feel that they are behind everyone else in the league so they have to go around the rules to be able to win however, it could also be suggested that schools cheat because it brings a greater profit to them. The NCAA makes it easier for schools to make a profit when they are cheating because violations that deal with the APR are handled immediately which any other violation must go through an investigation which takes a great deal of time (Avery 9). This is another motivator for schools to cheat because even if they are caught, it will take some time for any repercussions to be put into place that would affect their athletics. Meaning, schools are still making a profit while they are being investigated. Another example of why Smith might be wrong about the reason that schools are cheating is because prominent teams that are very high up in their conference are also committing academic scams. This does not appear to be true because top teams also partake in academic fraud even though they are in no way doing poorly compared to other schools.  

The money that athletics brings into the schools does not even go towards the academics, it goes right back into the athletic program (Jost). While some might argue that the money should go back into athletics because it was the athletic department’s money, a response is that athletes are already receiving the best and there could be a little more attention put on academics because they are still in college. College athletes receive either the most or the least amount of benefit from college. Athletes have to place their priority in their sport because for most student athletes, their hopes are to become professional players and if they do not perform well in their sport then there is no chance for them to make it to a professional league. Even if they fail in academics, this does not matter to them because they are solely trying to make it to a professional league (Roach). Even in the off season, players still have to work out and prepare for the next season to start. The reason that this would be such a detriment to some athletes is that if they do not go pro, then they wasted their time in college. However, in the long run, professional athletes that went to college still do not benefit from it as much as the average student had. “In a recent survey of professional football players, over two-thirds admitted that they never received a college degree (Hurts 59).” Although there are exceptions to the rule, the majority suggest that athletes are not benefiting as much from college as non-athletic students. 

The fact that these scandals are so frequent and that they have gone on for so long shows that the NCAA needs to pay closer attention to academics in college athletics. The NCAA made steps in the right direction with the APR because since its issue, there has been improvement on an academic standpoint from the players (Avery 31). The only problem with this statement from Avery is that these improvements could be from cheating. The stricter the NCAA rules became, the more academic fraud rose, meaning that the improvement could be the result of schools cheating (Wolverton). This shows that the punishments that the NCAA are placing on these schools are not doing an effective job at deterring schools away from breaking the rules. The rules and the sanctions are placed on the sports and the athletic departments and not the ones that are breaking the rules (Smith 99). Smith is showing that players and coaches that were directly involved with some scandals could potentially get away with what they have done because of the NCAA rules. 

The NCAA should punish those involved with scandal directly because punishments like this cause students that were innocent, student that do not even attend the college yet, in the fraud to be punished for it. One rule in particular that the NCAA should revise is the rule on scholarships. One of the sanctions that are placed on teams that are caught breaking the rules is a reduction in scholarships. This rule is a bit contradictory. When a school breaks an academic rule, the NCAA punishes them by not allowing certain students to receive an education. The NCAA is punishing students for not receiving their education by taking away their ability to pay for education. Instead of taking away scholarships, the NCAA should be reprimanding the students and schools better so there is more of a deterrent to not cheat. At one point during 2015, the NCAA was investigating 20 colleges for academic fraud. Seeing that this number is so high, the NCAA should recognize that their punishments are not a strong enough determent for schools and coaches to follow the rules. 

Since it is unclear at the moment if the NCAA rules are working, the NCAA should devote more resources to helping student athletes balance their school work load and their athletic work load. As Tom Price explains, when education is also a focus for athletes, they do very well and are able to apply skills such as time management to their everyday lives. According to Chris Hill, on average, sports take up between 40 and 60 hours a week year round (Price). The NCAA has already recognized that some schools are more difficult than others and should be given taken into consideration on how certain rules apply to them. For example, depending on how rigorous the academics are and how well the school is performing in the league, schools will be punished differently from others for violating the rules (Smith 101-102). Because punishments are delegated on a school by school basis, so should the resources that each school gets to help their athletes if the NCAA decided to assist these schools. 

One school in particular has made strides to help its athletes succeed in their academic responsibilities: The University of South Carolina. USC built the Dodie Anderson Academic Enrichment Center (Dodie) in 2008 with the sole purpose of helping athletes providing a steady source of academic support and mentorship to its athletes. They do this by providing special tutoring and keeping the athletes updated on their academic requirements for the University of South Carolina and the NCAA. This sort of institution is what other colleges should be required to have because it allows student athletes to be able to focus on school more easily. A female member of the USC’s Track and Field team said that she feels Dodie has given her the resources to perform successfully in class and that it has helped balance out practice time and study time (Murphy). With more centers like this, it is very likely that student APR scores will go up without the presence of cheating or fraud. 

Not every school is able to build a center or have the resources to help their athletes which is why the NCAA should help these schools. If the NCAA is going to make rules that force athletes to make certain grades, then the NCAA should also make rules enforcing certain mandatory study hours for the athletes. They should also train special agents that should monitor each school or oversee several schools for cheating and academic fraud. The NCAA needs to make real drastic changes if they want to fix the academic corruption that is taking place in schools nationwide. 
