Southern Cal from 1998-2004 graduated 58 percent of its football players, 18 percentage points below the student body as a whole, according to a study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida. The numbers are even lower at Texas, where 66 percent of the Longhorns players came up short. That's a whopping 36 percentage points below non-athletes at the school.

It's no wonder college football players are the butt of jokes. Have you ever heard this one: What does the N on the University of Nebraska football helmet stand for? Answer: knowledge.

Of the 56 Division I-A teams (the highest level of college sports) participating in bowl games this season, 27 of them, or 48 percent, graduated less than half of their players, according to the study.

If these are institutions of higher learning, what's being taught? And what do the institutions value?


…University athletic directors are among those who argue that football and basketball programs make money for their schools and that the gaudy salaries for coaches is more than recouped by television rights fees, ticket sales and booster donations.

Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, doesn't buy it. Universities, says Zimbalist, should implement a rule barring football coaches from earning more than school presidents.

"The argument that a coach is worth $2 million doesn't make much sense," he says. "It's a totally artificial market. There's no board of directors that's selected by stockholders who demand a profit at the end of the year."