Opinion: What academic research could learn from college athletics
Just as college sports have had to change, so does basic science research at universities. Morris W. Foster of the School for Advanced Research explains.
Since the end of World War II, the business plan of American universities has included two key principles that now are undergoing rapid disruptive change:
- Student-athletes participate in college sports in exchange for tuition, room, and board.
- Federal funding for academic research is the primary engine for the nation’s basic science enterprise.
We’ve already seen what happens to college athletics when that first principle transforms into “Name, Image and Likeness,” transfer portals, and conference realignment — with much more yet to come. The underlying economic conditions that funded college sports shifted over time, making a long-established order vulnerable to sudden change. Now, commercial and other outside funding sources for college athletes, once strictly forbidden, are commonplace, upending decades of “tradition” by injecting new dynamics into how teams are recruited, rivalries structured, and games played.
