Does College Football Success Impact Academic Rankings And The Overall Academic Quality Of Incoming Students For Private Universities?

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the relationship that exists between the football success of the seventeen NCAA Division-1 FBS private universities and the US News and World Report college rankings. This study shines more light on the constant debate about whether or not football success significantly impacts the reputation of a university. This study measures the relationship between college football success and the potential indirect benefits a university experiences from this success. These indirect benefits include things such as increases in applications and alumni donations. This study measures the correlations between football success and academic reputation through the use of regression analysis models that look at the change in US News and World Report college rankings from 1998 to 2013. The results from these statistical models demonstrated an undeniable correlation between the football success of the seventeen NCAA Division-1 FBS private universities and the US News and World Report college rankings. In other words, the better a private university performs in football, the better its academic reputation will become, assuming the university has continually invested in its academics.