Congress allows Ivy League antitrust exemption to expire

[upprdeck]

SO now that the ivies exemption to collude and not have athletic scholies is expiring, you wonder who is the first to do it, I mean you could in theory have an ivy offer one to a kid in jan for hockey

[Trotsky]

The obvious one to do it would be us, but pragmatically nobody can do it except HYP.  The rest rely on the luxury brand, and can't break with it without losing their status.

It would be interesting to see HYP say "fuck it" and start swinging their ahem endowment about.  It hasn't hurt Stanford, and it would be the same con: stop the hypocrisy of claiming you don't pay athletes, maintain the fiction you respect academic integrity when  admitting them, then start pulling in 4 star door knobs.

I suspect the Ivy brand is so seared into the East Coast psyche it would take a century to dissipate it.  The rest of the country quite frankly doesn't really care anymore; the golden years of being considered the dream destination of every valedictorian in Palookaville are long gone (perhaps thankfully).

But only if they did it.  If Penn or Columbia or we did it we'd just be the turd in the punchbowl.

tldr: the Ivies are bullshit and dying; let's win some games and have some fun.  We'll still all be rich until the proles come for us.

[Troyfan]

The Ivy League is a sports conference where members aren't allowed to give athletic scholarships.  Is that a condition that is subject to anti-trust persecution?

[Weder]

The antitrust exemption has to do with the lack of any merit-based aid at Ivies, not just the lack of athletic scholarships. A lawsuit against the Ivies and a few other schools, which can now proceed, alleges that this arrangement is part of a price-fixing scheme.

[George64]

It goes deeper than just lack of merit-based scholarships.  Back in the day, the Ivies met to determine the amount of financial aid common applicants would get to make cost not a factor in the student's decision. It applied to athletes and the rest of us alike.

NYT article from earlier this year.

I've always wondered how they adjusted for New York's contract colleges with their lower tuition.
.

[Troyfan]

Why don't they just keep colluding?  Is anyone outside or inside the Ivies likely to care?  Applicants, I guess...Non-Ivy schools compete for hot applicants. So they might feel Ivies should too.  But does competition have to penetrate every niche of the market?  So what if a handful of colleges go off and do their own thing?  Isn't there enough competition to go around?

Even if worse came to worst, would Cornell be disadvantaged?  Cornell vs. HYP can be like UNC vs. Duke. There are plenty of competitions between better vs. next tier schools where the lesser hold their own.  How has Auburn fared against Alabama lately, Michigan vs. Ohio State?

[nshapiro]

If the Ivies were colluding on financial aid, I expect that losing the protection would open them up to severe liability if they continued.

[osorojo]

I doubt the welfare of a legitimate institution of higher education depends upon the success of its amateur college sports teams. On the flip -side, not one successful sports team has spawned an institution of higher (or even lower) education!

[Troyfan]

I doubt the welfare of a legitimate institution of higher education depends upon the success of its amateur college sports teams. On the flip -side, not one successful sports team has spawned an institution of higher (or even lower) education!

I've heard or read that good but small schools, like Union and Colgate, use athletic success to increase their visibility.  Williams and Oberlin, being top tier, don't have this problem.  But then you have a place like University of Rochester that just goes merrily along, maintaining its standards and filling its slots without any problems and without any athletic celebrity at all.

[scoop85]

I doubt the welfare of a legitimate institution of higher education depends upon the success of its amateur college sports teams. On the flip -side, not one successful sports team has spawned an institution of higher (or even lower) education!

I've heard or read that good but small schools, like Union and Colgate, use athletic success to increase their visibility.  Williams and Oberlin, being top tier, don't have this problem.  But then you have a place like University of Rochester that just goes merrily along, maintaining its standards and filling its slots without any problems and without any athletic celebrity at all.

Not to nit-pick, but FWIW Colgate is ranked 18th in US News' 2022 Liberal Arts College rankings, Oberlin is ranked 39th.

[marty]

I doubt the welfare of a legitimate institution of higher education depends upon the success of its amateur college sports teams. On the flip -side, not one successful sports team has spawned an institution of higher (or even lower) education!

I remember an article I read a few years ago which concluded that Trotsky's favorite Land Grant school was elevated from a second rate Moo U into a legit university by some guy named Paterno.

[Al DeFlorio]

I doubt the welfare of a legitimate institution of higher education depends upon the success of its amateur college sports teams. On the flip -side, not one successful sports team has spawned an institution of higher (or even lower) education!

I've heard or read that good but small schools, like Union and Colgate, use athletic success to increase their visibility.  Williams and Oberlin, being top tier, don't have this problem.  But then you have a place like University of Rochester that just goes merrily along, maintaining its standards and filling its slots without any problems and without any athletic celebrity at all.

Not to nit-pick, but FWIW Colgate is ranked 18th in US News' 2022 Liberal Arts College rankings, Oberlin is ranked 39th.

US News rankings?  Meh.

[scoop85]

I doubt the welfare of a legitimate institution of higher education depends upon the success of its amateur college sports teams. On the flip -side, not one successful sports team has spawned an institution of higher (or even lower) education!

I've heard or read that good but small schools, like Union and Colgate, use athletic success to increase their visibility.  Williams and Oberlin, being top tier, don't have this problem.  But then you have a place like University of Rochester that just goes merrily along, maintaining its standards and filling its slots without any problems and without any athletic celebrity at all.

Not to nit-pick, but FWIW Colgate is ranked 18th in US News' 2022 Liberal Arts College rankings, Oberlin is ranked 39th.

US News rankings?  Meh.

Note the "FWIW" caveat

[Al DeFlorio]

I doubt the welfare of a legitimate institution of higher education depends upon the success of its amateur college sports teams. On the flip -side, not one successful sports team has spawned an institution of higher (or even lower) education!

I've heard or read that good but small schools, like Union and Colgate, use athletic success to increase their visibility.  Williams and Oberlin, being top tier, don't have this problem.  But then you have a place like University of Rochester that just goes merrily along, maintaining its standards and filling its slots without any problems and without any athletic celebrity at all.

Not to nit-pick, but FWIW Colgate is ranked 18th in US News' 2022 Liberal Arts College rankings, Oberlin is ranked 39th.

US News rankings?  Meh.

Note the "FWIW" caveat

I did.  Just reinforcing the skepticism.  

Serious academics disdain the rankings, but much of the public seems to look at them as gospel.  I've always felt that the original 1984 US News rankings had the most credibility.  They simply asked presidents and provosts (I think both...memory is fuzzy) to give a score to peer institutions, and averaged the results.  No consideration of SAT scores, faculty salaries, selectivity, class sizes, etc.  Having spent ten years working with these senior higher ed administrators,  I would say they knew which of their peers belonged where in the pecking order.  This is how they measured the success or lack thereof of their own institutions vis a vis their peers, with faculty quality a major factor in their thinking.
 
Here's the 1984 top ten, in 1 to 10 order:  Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, Chicago, Michigan, Cornell and Illinois (tied), MIT and Dartmouth (tied).

Note that state schools like Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois and partly-statutory Cornell were not penalized in this ranking (and rightly not, IMO) because of their lower selectivity resulting from being a state school.  Sometimes too much data in can result in garbage out.

[Trotsky]

< Sees Dartmouth and MIT tied. >

< Stops reading. >