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WFU and Economic Diversity

PhDeac said:
Yes. But it’s certainly what a Wake administrator would say. Maybe Rafi got a promotion.
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Who’s to say I wasn’t always an administrator? Special Administrator to Ronald Wellman.
 
Biff Ochocinco Tannen said:
The athletics part of this discussion is a red herring.
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I don’t think so, at least not as it applies to Wake. Wake is the smallest power 5 school, by a significant margin, and in choosing that path there has been a strong emphasis on collegiate athletics. Wake provides far and away more scholarship money through athletics than through non athletic scholarships. When alums donate to the school a large amount goes to athletics. This is extremely different from Wash U, the ivies, Davidson, Emory, etc, who provide no athletic scholarships. When alums of those schools donate, very little goes to athletics.
 
It's clearly not the point the article is making and Duke has athletes too, although it has twice as many students.
 
Biff Ochocinco Tannen said:
It's clearly not the point the article is making and Duke has athletes too, although it has twice as many students.
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Correct. It is definitely not the point the article is making. It’s just an aspect of the discussion I found interesting and pretty unique to Wake.

Athletics aside, I would love to see Wake go to need blind admissions and freeze tuition increases for 10 years. I’d also like to see specific programs to recruit and retain NC students from low income families.
 
Wait.

So I’ve been donating for many years equal amounts to the college fund, the deacon club, and medical school.

Rafi, are you saying my college fund contributions have been largely going to support athletics?
 
ConnorEl said:
Wait.

So I’ve been donating for many years equal amounts to the college fund, the deacon club, and medical school.

Rafi, are you saying my college fund contributions have been largely going to support athletics?
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Nope. I’m saying that a lot of alums, and other supporters, are Deacon Club members and don’t give to the college.
 
Frosty said:
Or, to summarize, be twice as good and expect half as much (lifted from Ta-Nehisi Coates)
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That’s a very common saying among Black people so it’s funny to see it attributed to one person.
 
PhDeac said:
That’s a very common saying among Black people so it’s funny to see it attributed to one person.
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Oh for sure, wanted to throw the attribution in there because this got me thinking on his musings on college, in particular
 
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Pretty funny that a thread about data which condemns or criticizes Wake’s lack of economic diversity is completely derailed by arguing over whether scholarship athletes should count towards the data. The assumption that scholarship athletes are significantly more economically diverse than the rest of Wake’s student body is spurious to begin with. The dedicated training, parental support, and finances required for an athlete to reach the highest D1 talent level tilts that group toward economic privilege.
 
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Correct. Across the board student athletes are more white and more affluent than the general student population. Although that’s probably not the case at Wake.
 
Yeah there was an NYT piece a few years ago about the cost of raising a professional tennis player in the US (I think Noah Rubin was part of it) and the estimated average cost was something like $1 million. Obviously this is on the extreme end, but you're still talking about tens of thousands of dollars minimum unless your kid is exceptionally gifted and is getting people/teams to sponsor them.

Whatever fraction of the football and basketball teams that is economically disadvantaged is 100% outweighed, or at maximum matched, by the makeups of the golf, soccer, tennis, field hockey, volleyball, etc. programs.
 
not sure the math but doesn't football have like 85 scholarships and basketball fifteen and soccer/tennis/track like four they split across the team?
 
PhDeac said:
Right. It sends a message that it's not enough to be as good at academics as rich kids. You need to be good at sports to keep the rich kids entertained and make the rich university more money.
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This, but unironically.
 
Wake was certainly much more economically diverse back when I attended... Need blind admissions was a thing and costs were lower by orders of magnitude - middle class and lower middle class kids were a dime a dozen...
 
scooter84 said:
Wake was certainly much more economically diverse back when I attended... Need blind admissions was a thing and costs were lower by orders of magnitude - middle class and lower middle class kids were a dime a dozen...
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the biggest thing, i'm sure, was the cost relative to median income/wealth resulting in less need in the first place
 
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