| Abstract: |
Universities in the pursuit of maintaining or raising the number of
enrollments are looking for ways to attract students. As demographics shift,
government funding decreases, and the general sentiment around higher
education changes, the competition between universities to attract prospective
students will only become more intense. Investing in athletics to achieve more
successful programs is one approach that universities have taken to better
appeal to potential students. We analyze whether football success, as measured
by win percentage, is correlated with a higher number of student applicants.
We find that for schools in the major “Power-Five” conferences, win percentage
does not significantly change the number of students who apply. However, in
the smaller “Group-of-Five” conferences, win percentage is associated with an
increase in the number of applications. This is a particularly relevant
finding because smaller universities may often be the ones struggling to
maintain the size of their student body. At the same time,
back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that the costs of increasing a
schools win percentage may not be worth the benefits in terms of increased
revenues from student enrollment. Key Words:Sports, Football, NCAA, Collegiate
Athletics, University, Freshman Application |