College sports should be privatized

According the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of students" enrolled in in an undergraduate and postgraduate is twenty million, so the scholarships you are defending only affect 2% students to begin with. [1] That figure is less than the number of students dropping out of high school between October 2012 and October 2013 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. [2] Apart from the very small population involved, the athletic department nor the NCAA cover the cost of their sports programs. Of 53 institution surveyed by Bloomberg news, 46 diverted money to sports in "their fiscal years ended in 2010, based on financial reports to the National Collegiate Athletic Association obtained from state school under open-record laws." [3] Final point to rebut the idea that the school or the majority benefits from NCAA sports here are a couple of quote from the USA TODAY highlighting that students pay through their tuition and fee hikes to subsidize sports teams: Linda Randall says her daughter, Randi-Lyn, a student at Radford University in southwestern Virginia, is not a "die-hard" follower of the Highlanders sports teams. Even so, by the time Randi-Lyn graduates in 2012, her parents probably will have paid an average of nearly $1,000 a year in fees to the school's athletics department. They just didn't know it from the school's billing statements or website. "We're looking at five years because she changed majors. That's $5,000," Randall says. "That's one of her loans. That would have paid rent off-campus for a year. It's kind of disheartening. I don't think I'd have as much of a problem with it if I knew I was paying it. With what we're paying, it doesn't seem right." Like most other schools in NCAA Division I, Radford relies on student fees to help support ever-expanding athletics budgets. Many schools, including Radford, do not itemize where those fees go for those who pay the tuition bills, USA TODAY found in an ongoing examination of college athletics finances. The amounts going to athletics are soaring, and account for as much as 23% of the required annual bill for in-state students. Students were charged more than $795 million to support sports programs at 222 Division I public schools during the 2008-09 school year, according to an analysis of thousands of pages of financial documents. Adjusting for inflation, that's an 18% jump since 2005, making athletics funding at public schools a key force in the rapidly escalating cost of higher education. At least six schools " all in Virginia " charged each of their students more than $1,000 as an athletics fee for the 2008-09 school year. That ranged from 10% to more than 23% of the total tuition and mandatory-fee charges for in-state students, the primary customers at most public universities. [4] Here are some more figures: "Take the University of Florida. During the 2009-2010 school year it raked in $44 million from football and $2 million from men's basketball"but lost $2.8 million on women's basketball, $5.3 million on other men's sports, and $10 million on other women's sports. And that's before you include the cost of coaches' salaries ($17.4 million), aid to student athletes ($7.5 million), and recruiting ($1.4 million)." [5] Sports teams provide little actual benefit to colleges and universities; moreover, they drain money from the state and other students. This is virtually just a form of welfare except, in these cases it serves zero purpose. I don"t think the money argument is even an actual debate. Let the NCAA become like a junior NBA, severe any relationship with the schools and let institutions designed for education focus on their real agenda, education. [1] http://nces.ed.gov... [2] http://www.bls.gov... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com... [4] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com... [5] http://reason.com...