I think you might have missed what I said. I'm not saying that sports provide tuition to many students because you're right, most student-athletes aren't on sch

I think you might have missed what I said. I'm not saying that sports provide tuition to many students because you're right, most student-athletes aren't on scholarship. I'm saying that big-time sports are a drain on the tuition money of all students in many cases. I'm not against athletics at college. I played rugby in grad school, and it was one of the highlights of my experience. I think athletics are a great thing, but that the growth of football and basketball into quasi-professional programs is tremendously wasteful, morally suspect, and unsustainable. My point is that the pool of college students nation-wide is not being expanded do to sports. If you're at college (anywhere) and were attracted there as a sports fan, you'd probably still be in college elsewhere if not for the sports, and you'd probably be there for more acadmically valid reasons. You are definitely right that athletics attract out-of-state students, who pay more. But I'd argue that this is actually a bad thing systemically given our national student loan debt crisis. I love athletics. But I also think that big-money athletics is a cancer on higher ed right now.