That said … from a sitting university president: “Suppose you have little hope of climbing Carnegie categories or ascending the rankings. In that case, the football stadium scoreboard clarifies which school won, which is nearly impossible to ascertain for the rest of higher education. For the most part, I’m not talking about the powerhouses of the gridiron. I’m talking about … schools where large football expenditures are funded primarily through student fees and by reallocating general operating funds to athletics. Those schools get positive football press coverage even if their overall graduation rates are lower than their teams’ average points scored per game.”

Read the president’s complete commentary (from Inside Higher Education) here.