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Comment by VoidWhisperer | Hacker News Reader

The issue with removing scholarships is that there are some groups of people that would preclude from being able to seek higher education at all - There are plenty of people in the US who absolutely cannot afford college without taking on loans or scholarships, and in many cases they may require the scholarships if they are unable to get the loans that they need (IE they have extremely bad credit).

Also, random side tangent, but I doubt you'd be able to convince America to get rid of college sports, it is too big of a thing here..

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> Also, random side tangent, but I doubt you'd be able to convince America to get rid of college sports, it is too big of a thing here..

Times change. Old wealthy white males selecting men based on athletic abilities, big muscles and ability to work hard and then not paying them for their work in return for free housing. We used to call that slavery, now we call it college sports.

Hasn't there already been a shot across the bow on this racket though with California’s Fair Pay to Play Act? [1]

[1] https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30/765834549/college-athletes-in...

Sort of, but not entirely. The law doesn't mandate that universities pay for the athletes to play for their school, but rather that athletes can profit off their likeness and image. So, a football player could be paid by the local car dealership to go sign autographs as part of an in-store promotion, rather than receiving a stipend or salary from the school.

Yeah if we let students be compensated for the value they bring to the table via sports some of them would be able to command comp packages rivaling the pros

You're right, athletes voluntarily choosing to go to schools to play sports is the same as slavery.

If college sports are such a big thing, can't they fund it from TV revenue like most normal sports? Seems like there should be a firewall between university budget and sports budget.

It certainly is a conflict of interest to provide education,scholarships,grants,food,and housing from the same budget that pays for stadiums,fields,coaches,and teams. Separate sports and education like church and st(the idealized version not the reality where governments are still deeply infected by church's).

There is a firewall. Athletic departments are separate legal entities with separate budgets. They often report to the same board that the academic institution report to.

And as a percentage of income, TV revenue is a huge part of the revenue for non-capital expenses. SEC and Big 10 schools get on the low end of $40 million/year on TV revenue along. ACC will get close to that, but not sure because their network just launched. Pac12 could get that much, but that whole conference is mismanaged.

They do. I believe the big sports rake in big bucks (this is a continuous point), and subsidize other sports. It's not just football and basketball. There's a ton of programs at a given school, even at small ones.

It seems like niche, and women's sports would take the biggest hit if we approached it based purely on making money. I know someone that got a full ride for cross-country running. She would not have received that, if it were revenue based.

P.S. Whether "student athletics" is a good idea is beyond the scope of this discussion.

In Norway the student loan is from the government, and everyone qualifies.

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