Rating: 
Summary: Flawed but on target
Review: First, the premise - Prof. Sperber argues that many Division I schools are shortchanging undergraduate students. He cites:* Chasing research dollars and "publish or perish", so that * Professors don't teach undergraduates - they get lectures.. * Unless they are honors students, who do get quality education. * To make up for this, universities promote fraternities.... * And big-time athletics, with beer companies paying part of... * the freight, with resources sunk into athletic facilities. I went to a Division III school (Pace University in NY) so I never encountered this. But, I can see how this works - the University of New Hampshire has invested its money recently into athletics facilities (after reviewing market research). And, more than a few people in the state have noticed - so they may find this book providing an explanation for these actions. The book does get quite repetitious with its premise, and it also ignores Division II schools completely (focusing on the differences between Div I-A and Div III (which do not award athletic scholarships). That would have provided a more complete test of this theory. Finally, one might ask why he chooses to teach at a large university, if it is really that bad. Professor Sperber was the biggest critic of the recently deposed Bob Knight - but he is only mentioned in passing here, which another respondent lamented. My guess is that he didn't want that to be the raison d'etre of the book, and have it overshadow the book's message. Besides, he already received enough death threats. All in all - a compelling read. Even if you don't accept the book's premise, you may find at least some parts resonating. Or, at least challenging.
Rating:
Summary: The downfall of undergraduate education
Review: Follow the money trail, this book convincingly argues that colleges and universities have pushed aside undergraduate education to court big money research grants and money making athletics. Murray Sperber presents and substantiates the argument that undergraduate students are getting the short end of the stick when it comes to academics. Schools and outside parties are selling the first four years of college as an experience..crammed full with extracuriccular activities, and an undeniable emphasis on drinking and partying. Academic pursuits are not a priority and those who are dogged in their pursuit to excell academically, do not fit in with the general student population. I had hoped that Mr. Sperber would have included more of his experiences at Indiana where he was a vocal opponant of Bobby Knight and the sports at all cost mentality. A thoughtful look of the state of higher education today.
Rating: 
Summary: Major disappointment.
Review: I found this book a complete waste of my time. There are all types of college students. Did this guy spend any time doing research? His conclusions are suspect, at best.
Rating: 
Summary: Right on the money
Review: I love college sports, especially basketball, but college sports has serious problems. Things have gotten so bad that sports are sometimes getting in the way of education. Sperber has done his research well and identified the problem well. Sperber is not the typical granola-eating sports hater; he knows too much about college sports not to be a knowledgeable fan. But he also knows the system is sick and needs to be fixed. This book makes me glad I chose to attend a Division III school.
Rating:
Summary: Breaks my heart, but..............
Review: I was raised on SEC sports, and a huge Tennessee fan my entire life. I graduated from a NAIA school with a nationally ranked football team, but being a late bloomer from an academic standpoint, a vocational, as well as a Gamma Delta Iota, I was unaware of the magnitude of the problem facing large public universities regarding the mix(er), no pun intended, between academics and athletics. While the book is well written and contains an enourmous amount of statistical information, it does indeed break my heart to realize that higher education has stooped to this level. I'm thankful that I received a good liberal arts education from my small (1200 enrollment) NAIA school.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting concepts, omissions and errors...
Review: It appears that Professor Sperber has turned a 6,000 article in an education periodical into a booklength indictment of college sports and diatribe against alcohol. I disagree with his findings and assumptions. His research methods -- website questionaires et cetera -- are questionable, and his general assumptions from there are broad and often incorrect. Examples: He claims a high correlation between "party schools" and/or "drinking schools" and big-time athletics. BUT, the Princeton Review's top 10 party schools include U.Cal at Santa Barbara (3), and drinking schools include U. Va., Colgate and UCSB for liquor consumption, and UCSB, Lehigh, New Hampshire, Dartmouth and Union for beer. I mean, isn't Dartmouth the model for Animal House?? He doesn't mention that, but procedes to take a few shots at Oregon, where the film was made. I was also confused about the Tulane listing early in the book as a party school with big-time athletics. I think the party tag was more related to being in new orleans than anything to do with jocks... especially because further along in the book he quotes a TU jock complaining about how the other students look down on her, something quite inconsistent with jock schools. Then, there is his reference to Rice joining the erstwhile Southwest Conference "before" it became devoted to excellence... I think that was in 1934, the year Columbia went to the Rose Bowl -- obviously before Columbia became devoted to exellence. Then he remarks that TCU is not connected to a religious sect, which probably comes as a surprise to the Disciples of Christ. After taking a few pot shots at New Mexico early in the book, he procedes to condemn TCU's exit from the WAC, where NEw Mexico resides, in favor of the CUSA, which includes such jock schools at Cincinnati, Louisville, Houston... St.Louis University and Army. He is absolutely correct that a large percentage of college students are apparently wasting their time and a lot of other's, too, by enrolling in college. BUT, a want ad in the employment section of the Houston Chronicle a few weeks ago fully explains why they are in school: An automobile leasing company listed a college degree as a requirement for a sales position -- damn, a degree to sell cars! That's why these kids are in school. And that's why they don't care about anything but a degree. And, if they get drunk three nights a week, so be it. Finally, why is the LSU or Texas honors college so bad while Rice's undergraduate program is so good?? I would think the latter more elite than the former... A good word: His summarizing scenario paints a picture of minor league sports at Big State Us. He says that once colleges begin paying cash stipends to jocks, a free market economy in high school athletes is only a few steps away. That is probably more accurate than even he thinks. In the past two or three years, courts have ruled that the stipends granted grad students are wages and the students have the right to organize for collective bargaining. As Sperber says, that is exactly what will happen in college football. I see a major readjustment in college sports to follow. It will be interesting to see what Notre Dame and Duke do....
Rating:
Summary: Grade Inflation Is The Real Culprit In This Tragedy
Review: Murray Sperber is to be congratulated for his courage in exposing the rampant immorality widely found on college campuses throughout the United States. Many of the school administrators, professors, and students described in this book deserve criminal prosecution. There are literally thousands of people in prison who have committed far less onerous deeds. Should we hold our breadth waiting for justice to be done? Of course not. Such unethical behavior has become the norm, and far too many people have reputations and careers to protect. Nothing is likely to change anytime in the near future. A powerful and vindictive establishment will do virtually anything to destroy its opponents. Sperber's secure position as a tenured English professor at Indiana University is the only thing keeping him out of harm's way. Is Dr. Sperber perhaps placing too much emphasis on sports? Wes Lukowsky in his "Booklist" review makes an extremely valid point: "the weakest part of the book is Sperber's attempt to establish a direct relationship between the presence of big-time athletics on campus and the poor education received by most undergraduates. The reader finishes the book convinced that athletics harms athletes, but that university education is in plenty of trouble with or without sports on campus." Amen, I am in total agreement with Lukowsky. The grade inflation crisis would still continue to exist even if all sports programs were immediately banned. Of far greater importance is the Egalitarian myth arguing that just about anyone can successfully complete a university education. The late educational theorist Russell Kirk said the following in 1959: "This narrow clique of ill-educated professors of pedagogy has terribly injured our educational system by the false dogma that all men 'are or can be made equal by education.' In truth, any society is the negation of equality. 'What compulsory public school education was supposed to do was to eliminate intellectual inequalities in American society, to make all men -- and later, women -- scholars. What it has, perforce, come to do is strive to prevent any individual from rising above the intellectual mediocrity of the majority." Matters have only worsened considerably in the last forty years. It is regretful that our young adults are pressured to attain a college degree regardless of their natural abilities. The inevitable result is that the standards must be lowered to accommodate the influx of these increasing numbers of less talented students. A degree is often perceived as an entitlement, and not something to be earned. One pays their money to purchase a commodity product. The schools feel compelled to provide entertainment to divert everybody's attention away from the cynical fact that little education is actually occurring in the classrooms. Why should it therefore be surprising that cynical youngsters indulge in alcoholic binges? After all, the sane person must make the best of their insane surroundings. I highly recommend Sperber's latest book. Nonetheless, I hope to encourage him to soon direct more attention upon the egalitarian ethos that ultimately threatens to destroy our democratic culture. Tackling this controversial issue, however, will make Sperber's troubles over the Bobby Knight fiasco seem like an enjoyable walk in the park. Life indeed can become significantly harsher. I hope Professor Sperber is up to the task.
Rating:
Summary: Premises and Promises
Review: Murray Sperber's latest book makes some significant points about the declining quality of undergraduate education. It's worth a quick read for that alone. However, the title promises a connection which Sperber did not make, at least not convincingly. I kept reading trying to link sports to the erosion of undergraduate education, and I never got to the point. I believe that the premise is flimsy at best and tortued at worst. I suspect that you could make the point that the size of the college is the key factor correlating to a positive undergraduate experience rather than athletics. Equally troubling was the lack of hard data (which the author himself admits) to back up many of the allegations. I concur with the earlier review that the comments on JUCO's were gratuitous at best. As a graduate of one of the Big U's that Sperber villifies in this book, I can only say that my own experience does not parallel many of those cited, and I suspect that there are many more of us than Professor Sperber would like to acknowledge. I went to a large school with my eyes wide open. I did my research and knew what to expect in terms of class size, etc. I also had only one class taught by a teaching assistant or a grad student. I enjoyed my college experience, and that experience includes class, partying and college athletics. Perhaps my lack of enthusiasm about this book is related to my own view that the undergraduate experience is about more than classwork, on-campus lectures, and poetry readings. While reading this book, I had the feeling that Professor Sperber was trying very hard to connect two things which he dislikes intensely -- undergraduates at large universities and major college athletics, but the connection wasn't there for me.
Rating:
Summary: Sloppy thinking amid obvious points
Review: Other reviewers have noted that Sperber does not make his main case: namely, that "big time college sports" is ruining undergraduate education. What he describes accurately is the obvious point that most big universities have for a long time been giving most undergraduates a bad deal, and this seems to be getting worse. He also describes another obvious trend: to wit, that Division 1 college football and basketball have become big entertainment vehicles that create lots of money for colleges. This creates an unhappy compromise between the traditional concepts of amateur athletics within an educational institution and the desire to professionalize the sports to maximize revenues. However, much of his analysis is sloppy and he never shows the connection between these two obvious trends. For example, he often states that few college sports programs show a net income and most show net losses. However, most of these colleges have 20 or 30 sports programs and only two (men's basketball and football) create any serious revenue. So, is it the basketball program losing money or is it the whole athletic program? In another example he notes that Wisconsin spent more than its $2 million on its Rose Bowl trip. However, he ignores that Wisconsin shared in the bowl revenue that all of the other Big 10 schools generated, and that Wisconsin pockets $2 million with no expenses when they don't go to the Rose Bowl. In another stretch he argues that "Juco" transfers are lousy students. He cites no statistics to back this up. This is especially irritating since community colleges provide the student-friendly classrooms that he argues major universities should have. In another example he cites that North Carolina basketball players lower SAT scores than the general student body, but does not correct that to reflect race or socio-economic background. This kind of loose reasoning might appeal to some but I want a more rigorous look at the issue.
Rating:
Summary: If You Can't Go To College, Go To State U......
Review: Perhaps Sperber's argument is simply backward. Undergraduate education at that ugly diploma factory we laughingly call State U IS putrid, but perhaps one way administrators attempt to cover up this collossal fraud is through huckleberry sideshows like semi-professional athletic contests. Sperber would then simply have to document (as he already has) all the Pacific Ocean-sized shortcomings of "teaching" 18 - 22 year olds (and 45,000 of their closest friends) on campus and THEN show how one avenue of diversionary tactics opened to administrators, once they recognized the fiasco on their hands, became/was/is jock festivals. This is where the beer and circus theme fits so well. Mind you athletics has a long history on these "campuses", and the brain dead alumni have alot to do with propping up their, ahem, "alma maters" respective sports teams (perhaps as a way to salvage some semblance of their pitiful school pride so they have something to yap about with their co-workers at the office water cooler - how sad!) so there is likely no perfect positive correlation between educational quality and size and scope of athletics. Nevertheless, as I myself was an all too willing "chump" of this despicable system some years ago, I sensed something was quite wrong with the priorities of the Rust Belt public college I attended - I just couldn't find the right words. I now recall ruefully what a high school counselor told me at the time: real students attend the Ivys and the smaller liberal arts colleges. And everyone else settles for the cattle warehouses and wastelands of public institutions. Or as Sperber so perfectly recalled as written down on the toilet paper dispenser in the mens room of one of these multi-versities: "Bachelors degrees from this school. Take one."
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