Class...

Charlie76

With the onset of NIL or (pay for play), what percentage of athletes actually attend class anymore?

Mulerider

Charlie76 On the D2 and FCS level, I would say the majority of them. Especially if it's in a degree other than Communications or Coaching. Now they might have someone doing the majority of their homework, but that's on a case-by-case basis.

D1, I'm not sure, but I feel like it's easy to fast-track at that level when you have over 10,000 students. There are a ton of useless degrees they could graduate in.

Every once in a while it's cool to see them major in things like Engineering, Accounting, etc.

Gready

Charlie76 The same percent that attended prior to NIL (which isn't pay for play but rather compensating players for their own name, image, and likeness as they should have always been). NIL doesn't likely have any significant negative impact on whether student-athletes go to class or not. If anything, it probably increases class attendance because they don't want to be deemed ineligible and lose their NIL money.

joshgoff

Getting an accurate figure overall, for all athletes across all sports at every level, would be a gargantuan task. So I don't know that you're ever going to get a good answer to that.

I think it's safe to say there's probably some variance from one school/sport to the next.

I do know it's rare to hear about anyone being academically ineligible these days. And a lot of them have degrees conferred, so I assume a good chunk are still attending class. Probably a larger percentage than the percentage of athletes getting paid to play.

The assumption that athletes are skipping out on class is something that far pre-dates NIL. Are more doing it now than 20, 30 years ago? I have no idea. I also do not care. I'm rooting for Austin Myers to rip missiles into the end zone all day every Saturday whether or not he's sitting in HIST 4360: The Mediterranean World In Late Antiquity on Tuesday.

I wonder which has a bigger impact on academic pursuits – NIL or the transfer portal. Got to think there are plenty of examples of kids transferring from school to school, losing credits along the way, and being short of hours when their eligibility/scholarship money runs out and never finishing up. Would be interesting data to see.

Bigpurplebear

I think you had more during the Covid years. Lot of kids the last couple of years who were in their 7th year taking blowoff online classes. I was not a fan of it. Move on and let the next man up have his chance.