Athletic Graduation Rates

Athletes are often times looked upon as the "dumb jocks" stemming all the way from their highschool days, and continuing to their collegiate careers, this trend needs to come to an end. A 2003 study shows that the graduation rate for all UT students is 81 percent whereas the graduation rates for student athletes is only at 62 percent. However when looking at the sports under the most survellience such as football, there is only a 49 percent graduation rate. When you put this number under an even bigger microscope such as minority, there is only a 37 percent graduation rate of African Americans and roughly a 70 percent graduation rate of  Caucasian Americans. This is about a 32 percent difference in the graduation rate of the two races. The problem with this statistic however is that it does not take into account the players who forgo their senior seniors to enter their perspective draft therefore the statistics are in a sense somewhat skewed. These statistics are not only somewhat embarrasing for the athletic programs, but they also upset other faculty. The athletic staff not only employ some of the highest paid people on campus, but also some of the highest paid in Texas as well. Since the majority of teachers look at student athletes through the student only lense it appears as if the athletic staff is not really doing their job and therefore should not be paid nearly as much. Much of the faculty take the standpoint that these diminishing athletic graduation rates make the University look worse and ruin the graduation rates of the University as a whole. There will always be a difference in opinion between the faculty and the athletic staffs, so it is best that both parts just do their job adequately.