A Division III Study: Does Being a Collegiate Athlete Cause Lower GPAs, While Also Causing Negative Treatment in the Classroom by Other Students?

Abstract

There are many debates about the relationship between athletics and academic performance in the American liberal arts system. This study proposes that there is a negative treatment of athletes by other students in the classroom. It also reveals that athletes have lower GPAs than non-athletes. Using a data set collected at Skidmore College in 2006, these questions are analyzed. This study investigates the degree to which athletes perform compared to non-athletes and their treatment by other students. The sample had 361 valid respondents of whom 50 percent were athletes, and 66 percent of the sample were women. The results demonstrate that athletes, on the whole, have lower GPAs than non-athletes. It also shows that women have higher GPAs than men, which was expected. Based on the findings at Skidmore College in 2006, students did not feel that they were treated poorly by other students just because they were athletes. The data confirms the first hypothesis which stated that on average athletes will have lower GPAs than non-athletes. However, the second hypothesis that athletes were more likely to agree that athletes are treated more poorly than non-athletes was not supported by the data.