Originally Posted by Bostonian
Originally Posted by master of none
How fitting. Seems very little interest in what the schools do with athletes.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/07/us/ncaa-athletes-reading-scores/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
From the article:
Quote
Robert Stacey, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington, said the conversation should be about the achievement gap -- the difference between the academic levels of the athletes and their nonathlete peers at the same university.

"We know how to close the achievement gap. It's just very expensive," he said. "A student who scored a 380 on his or her (SAT) critical reading is going to face tremendous challenges, won't be able to compete the first year with a student who has a 650 or 700. But with intensive tutoring -- and I'm not talking about cheating, I'm talking about tutoring -- by the time they get to be juniors, they're competing. But it's a very expensive process. It takes intensive work."
No, intensive tutoring, except in unusual circumstances (such as a student who studied in another country and barely knew English), will not turn a student with 380 SAT verbal into one with a 650 or 700. And if a program to greatly increase scholastic aptitude did exist, it ought not to be limited to athletes.


Wow.

I just have to look at programs like these and wonder... and what would those resources have meant if they'd been applied elsewhere-- say, to economically disadvantaged but academically high-potential students? frown

You know, those who come in from low-income high schools-- lacking AP coursework, but possessed of otherwise good grades and test scores (albeit not stellar ones due to lack of experience/superscoring)?



Serious question-- how much WOULD it actually cost to reduce tuition by 30-50% at public colleges and universities? COULD it be done? If you raised standards-- say, that a floor for test scores would be something like a 27 ACT or an 1800 SAT, no exceptions-- could that reduce the number of attendees sufficiently to make government support of the institution adequate to the task? I don't really know the answer-- I'm curious.

Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.