Smells Like School Spirit: 2-Year Colleges Add Sports Teams

Thousands of students enroll in community and junior colleges every year, generally as an alternative to higher priced private and public 4-year colleges. In the past that meant foregoing the "college experience" complete with sports teams, dorm life, student government and lots of school spirit in exchange for less stringent admissions requirements, low per-unit costs, flexible schedules and a shorter path to a degree (an associate's degree).

Junior and community colleges still offer these great benefits, but, in response to the demands throngs of students ages 18-24, they are now attempting to provide a more authentic college experience by adding or expanding athletic programs. Students--both those interested in playing sports and those who simply want to cheer them on--are responding by enrolling in greater numbers to those community and junior colleges that boast athletic teams. And that's just what the colleges' presidents had in mind.

The National Junior College Athletics Association has reportedly added more than 40 colleges since 2003, ten of those in 2006 alone, bringing their total membership to 500 colleges.

Here's a sampling of the new additions:

2006

• Arkansas Baptist College (Little Rock, Ark.)
• Berean Institute (Philadelphia)
• Coastal Bend College (Beeville, Tex.)
• Guilford Technical Community College (Jamestown, N.C.)
• Jackson Community College (Jackson, Mich.)
• Little Big Horn College (Crow Agency, Mont.)
• Marion Military Institute (Marion, Ala.)
• Mayland Community College (Spruce Pine, N.C.)
• Simmons College of Kentucky (Louisville, Ky.)
• University of South Carolina at Lancaster (Lancaster, S.C.)

Find junior and community college athletic programs in your state!

112 Colleges Sports Teams Fail to Make the Grade

The NCAA announced last week that 112 teams from 75 colleges had failed to meet its Academic Progress Rate requirements. Eighty-one teams face scholarship cuts. Forty-nine teams, including 18 of those losing scholarships, received warning letters for failing to meet academic standards for three consecutive years.

Find out how the athletic teams at your favorite colleges fared.

New NCAA Rules May Keep Many High School Athletes From College Athletics

Last month, the NCAA's Division I Board of Directors quietly passed legislation designed to prevent high-school athletes with low grades from taking fluff courses to increase their chances of playing college sports.

The rule, which goes into effect on August 1, stipulates that students may count only one core course that they take after graduating from high school toward the academic requirements they need to play college sports.

The change comes on the heels of a series of news reports that detailed how some athletes used transcripts from bogus private schools to boost their grade-point averages and help them to qualify for major college sports programs.

Following the reports, the NCAA investigated the transcripts and student records of dozens of preparatory schools. During the investigation, NCAA officials discovered that a growing number of athletes were not only taking fluff courses in order to inflate their grade-point averages, but were also dropping out of high school after their sports seasons ended and enrolling in a diploma mill to complete their high school course requirements.

"Kevin C. Lennon, an NCAA vice president who has headed the association's investigation of diploma mills, said that the finding he found most distasteful was that "Some of our college coaches were encouraging the behavior."

The NCAA's investigation resulted in colleges being banned from accepting transcripts from at least 15 schools.

NCAA officials clearly hope that the new rule will not only discourage athletes with low grade-point averages from seeking out fraudulent schools and fluff courses to qualify for college sports programs, but will also deter operators of private preparatory schools from running diploma mills and college coaches from encouraging star athletes to skirt the requirements.

Some college-sports officials believe the rule change could lead many poor-performing high-school athletes to enroll in junior colleges instead of preparatory schools. This may be undesirable given that attending the private preparatory schools allows student-athletes to not only improve their grades, but also work on their games and preserve their eligibility to play four years of college sports.