Except you forget how much money high-profile athletic teams bring into the schools. College athletics really can't afford to eliminate scholarships. Those players are needed to field the teams that win - the biggest names in college basketball, are the highly skilled, exciting players that people want to see. Yes, I know that there are some teams who surprise; but they aren't consistent. How did their attendance look before that big-winning year? Attendance = money.
And yes, I'm aware that there was a time that those impact players DID go to college; and they stayed. But that was only because there WAS no other options for them. Big name programs can maintain their revenue by fielding teams who win.
You mention financial aid - yes, right now there is quite a bit of need based financial aid available, IF you apply for it in time; but it isn't unlimited and only so much is allocated for each university/college. A huge influx of financial aid requests would create a enormous strain and, IMO, most who apply would get less than what is needed in order to attend school.
This is just my opinion, and my apologies for it being poorly worded. I don't have any numbers to back any of this up either; it's just based on what I've observed and have dealt with regarding student financial aid.
Your reply is worded just fine.
However, I must take issue with your comment "Except you forget how much money high-profile athletic teams bring into the schools." Unless I am sorely mistaken, the vast majority of college athletics programs operate at a loss, UK being a rare exception (even UK is barely above break-even), and must receive supplementary funding from their respective universities' general fund, i.e., from the public's taxpayer dollars.
Perhaps, just maybe, if athletic scholarships were eliminated and we returned to the scholar-athlete concept instead of the employee-athlete-scholar model to which we seem headed, the following positive, IMHO, results would take place:
(1) Athletics coaches would be paid on a scale similar to full professor, assistant professor, associate professor, graduate assistant scale instead of the multi-million dollar contracts paid today. Afterall, our universities are supposed to be institutions of higher learning, not athletics factories.
(2) The corruption in the NCAA and at the universities (see U or Miami, UNCheat, UofL Escort scandals, shoe deals, etc.) would be reduced.
(3) The level of excitement, not to be equated with the level of skill being viewed, of attending a college athletics event would not be diminished as much as some people would argue. One of the most exciting games I've ever seen was Georgetown College winning a national championship in football several years ago and, before some ask, I saw UK beat the LSU national championship football team a few years back.
(4) The cost of taking a family to a college athletics event would be reduced to a level that most fans can afford.
Certainly, there would be some downside to the approach I have suggested. Most notedly:
(1) The skill-level of the college athletes, taken as a whole, would likely be diminished to some degree.
(2) The universities may have some difficulties in funding the huge debt service on their opulent athletic facilities.
Overall, IMHO, the end result for our
institutions of higher learning would be an outstanding positive!!!!
