IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hcx/wpaper/0506.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Research Note: Athletic Graduation Rates and Simpson’s Paradox

Author

Listed:
  • Victor Matheson

    (Department of Economics, College of the Holy Cross)

Abstract

Graduation rates for male athletes overall as well as men’s football and basketball players lag behind those of male non-athletes at Division I colleges and universities. Scholarship athletes, however, are much more likely to be drawn from racial and ethnic groups with lower average graduation rates. After accounting for differences in racial composition, graduation rates for male athletes overall as well football players match or exceed those of their peers, and racial differences account for over one-quarter of the shortfall in men’s basketball graduation rates. This is a classic example of Simpson’s Paradox.

Suggested Citation

  • Victor Matheson, 2005. "Research Note: Athletic Graduation Rates and Simpson’s Paradox," Working Papers 0506, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hcx:wpaper:0506
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hcapps.holycross.edu/hcs/RePEc/hcx/HC0506-Matheson_GraduationRates.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Louis H. Amato & John M. Gandar & Richard A. Zuber, 2001. "The Impact of Proposition 48 on the Relationship Between Football Success and Football Player Graduation Rates," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(2), pages 101-112, May.
    2. Tucker, Irvin B., 2004. "A reexamination of the effect of big-time football and basketball success on graduation rates and alumni giving rates," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 655-661, December.
    3. Amato, Louis & Gandar, John M. & Tucker, Irvin B. & Zuber, Richard A., 1996. "Bowls versus playoffs: The impact on football player graduation rates in the national collegiate athletic association," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 187-195, April.
    4. Irvin B. Tucker, 2005. "Big-Time Pigskin Success," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(2), pages 222-229, May.
    5. Tucker, Irvin III & Amato, Louis, 1993. "Does big-time success in football or basketball affect SAT scores?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 177-181, June.
    6. Patrick James Rishe, 2003. "A Reexamination of How Athletic Success Impacts Graduation Rates: Comparing Student‐Athletes to All Other Undergraduates," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 407-427, April.
    7. Murphy, Robert G. & Trandel, Gregory A., 1994. "The relation between a university's football record and the size of its applicant pool," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 265-270, September.
    8. McCormick, Robert E & Tensley, Maurice, 1987. "Athletics versus Academics? Evidence from SAT Scores," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(5), pages 1103-1116, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jerome Segura & Jonathan Willner, 2018. "The Game Is Good at the Top," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(5), pages 645-676, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert A. Baade & Robert W. Baumann & Victor A. Matheson, 2008. "Assessing the Economic Impact of College Football Games on Local Economies," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(6), pages 628-643, December.
    2. Robert Baade & Robert Baumann & Victor Matheson, 2011. "Big Men on Campus: Estimating the Economic Impact of College Sports on Local Economies," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 371-380.
    3. Jerome Segura III & Jonathan Willner, 2019. "Athleticism in NCAA D-III: It Ain’t Only Football That Matters," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(7), pages 929-958, October.
    4. D. Randall Smith, 2008. "Big-Time College Basketball and the Advertising Effect," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(4), pages 387-406, August.
    5. D. Randall Smith, 2009. "College Football and Student Quality: An Advertising Effect or Culture and Tradition?," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(2), pages 553-579, April.
    6. Malcolm Getz & John Siegfried, 2010. "What Does Intercollegiate Athletics Do To or For Colleges and Universities?," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 1005, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    7. Candon Johnson & Bryan C. McCannon, 2022. "Athletics and Admissions: The Impact of the Penn State Football Scandal on Student Quality," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(2), pages 200-221, February.
    8. Behera, Sarthak & Sadana, Divya, 2022. "The Impact of Visibility on School Athletic Finances: An Empirical Analysis using Google Trends," MPRA Paper 114818, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Devin G. Pope & Jaren C. Pope, 2009. "The Impact of College Sports Success on the Quantity and Quality of Student Applications," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 750-780, January.
    10. Trevor Collier & Nancy Haskell & Kurt W. Rotthoff & Alaina Baker, 2020. "The “Cinderella Effect†: The Value of Unexpected March Madness Runs as Advertising for the Schools," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(8), pages 783-807, December.
    11. Michael L. Anderson, 2017. "The Benefits of College Athletic Success: An Application of the Propensity Score Design," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 119-134, March.
    12. Mulholland, Sean E. & Tomic, Aleksandar (Sasha) & Sholander, Samuel N., 2014. "The faculty Flutie factor: Does football performance affect a university's US News and World Report peer assessment score?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 79-90.
    13. Jerome Segura & Jonathan Willner, 2018. "The Game Is Good at the Top," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(5), pages 645-676, June.
    14. Roberto Gásquez & Vicente Royuela, 2014. "Is Football an Indicator of Development at the International Level?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 827-848, July.
    15. Benjamin Baumer & Andrew Zimbalist, 2019. "The Impact of College Athletic Success on Donations and Applicant Quality," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-23, April.
    16. Daniel R. Marburger, 2015. "How Are Athletic Directors Rewarded in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(3), pages 254-267, April.
    17. J. D. Pitts & B. Evans, 2016. "The role of conference externalities and other factors in determining the annual recruiting rankings of football bowl subdivision (FBS) teams," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(33), pages 3164-3174, July.
    18. Daniel C. Hickman & Andrew G. Meyer, 2017. "Does Athletic Success Influence Persistence At Higher Education Institutions? New Evidence Using Panel Data," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(4), pages 658-676, October.
    19. Mark D. Groza, 2010. "NCAA conference realignment and football game day attendance," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 517-529, December.
    20. Devin G. Pope & Jaren C. Pope, 2014. "Understanding College Application Decisions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(2), pages 107-131, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    college sports; sports economics; graduation rates;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hcx:wpaper:0506. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deholus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.