When recruited athletes make up such a substantial fraction of the entering class in at least some colleges, is there a risk that there will be too few places for other students, who want to become poets, scientists, or leaders of civic causes? Is there a possibility that, without realizing what is leading to what, the institutions themselves will become unbalanced in various ways? For example, will they feel a need to devote more and more of their teaching resources to fields like business and economics — which are disproportionately elected by athletes — in lieu of investing more heavily in less “practical” fields, such as classics, physics, and language study? Similarly, as one commentator put the question, what are the effects on those students interested in fields like philosophy? Could they feel at risk of being devalued? —James L. Shulman and William G. Bowen

—How the Playing Field Is Encroaching on the Admissions Office (Chronicle)

An old article, but on a subject that weighs on my mind from time to time.