In 2015, 65 universities in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I autonomous conferences changed their scholarship policy by allowing universities to give student-athletes cost of attendance stipends. While student-athletes welcomed this policy change, many people within the higher education community felt the policy change…

We examined a student subgroup often absent from diversity research: student-athletes. We explored whether intercollegiate athletic teams are promoting an open and inclusive environment and whether creating such an environment leads to more frequent and more positive cross-racial interactions. Findings reveal that overall, coaches appear to be…

Does fielding a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) program help an institution of higher education obtain aid in the form of state appropriations? Two published studies have found some evidence of a positive correlation between having an FBS-level football program and the amount of appropriations received by public universities. This study looked to…

Using nationally representative data from the 2010 NCAA Growth, Opportunities, Aspirations and Learning of Students in college (GOALS) survey, this study examines whether student-athletes' cross-racial interactions correlate with their college satisfaction. Our findings suggest a small but statistically significant correlation between cross-racial…

In recent years, a number of colleges and universities have made the decision to pursue membership in the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) with the idea that participating in higher profile intercollegiate football can help attract students to their institution. This belief, however, has not been empirically examined. Using…

Student retention has been one of the more researched topics in the study of American higher education over the past 20 years (Braxton, Hirschy, & McClendon, 2004; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Very little of this research, however, has attempted to examine the impact of college athletics on an institution's ability to retain students.…

This study examines the impact of fielding a successful college football team on institutional popularity using a dependent variable (admissions yield) and an independent variable (bowl game television rating) which have been unexamined in previous research on this topic. The findings suggest that college football success is correlated with a…