IStock Photo 5411309 © Jeff Milner

March Madness, a joyful time for sports fans, generates even more joy for TV executives and the NCAA. CBS took in over $400 million from the 2009 tournament; the network is paying the NCAA $6 billion over 11 years for the broadcast rights, and rumors abound that the NCAA could opt out this summer in search of an even bigger deal with ESPN. In fact, money has become so integrated into college sports that the University of Michigan chose a former CEO of Domino's Pizza as its new athletic director.

But as college hoops becomes a bigger business, it becomes more tempting for schools to neglect their student athletes’ educations, as the recent troubles at Binghamton University demonstrate. An investigation concluded that since moving to the “big time” (Division I) in 2001 the school had compromised its academic integrity by circumventing academic standards and accepting players for whom it knew it couldn’t provide needed academic help, among other problems.

How colleges balance academics and athletics is a matter of concern even at the highest levels of government. United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has publicly criticized the NCAA and the NBA for low graduation rates among college basketball players. The odds a male Division I college basketball player will graduate are 1 in 1.56, about 64%—and 24 of the 64 teams in last year's NCAA tournament graduated fewer than half of their players.

One contributing factor: an NBA rule that requires high school mega-stars to wait one year after graduating before entering the league. “…those kids...are not taking anything in the way of real college work. They are not really student athletes—they are passing through, divorced from the life of the campus,” Duncan said in a speech to the NCAA. He suggested that the NBA adopt a policy like Major League Baseball’s: let high school phenoms go straight to the pros, but require college players to complete at least their junior year before entering the draft.

Academics and athletics don’t have to conflict. This year, basketball has flourished in a conference that puts academics first. Without awarding any athletic scholarships, two Ivy League schools have achieved historic success. Well into the season, Harvard—Arne Duncan's alma mater—was competing for a March Madness spot, something it hadn’t achieved since 1946. Meanwhile defending Ivy League champion Cornell was ranked #22 in the national coaches poll on Feb. 10 and was 23-4 after defeating Dartmouth on Feb. 20.

Ivy League teams don't report their graduation rates, but we know that the odds an applicant to an Ivy League school will be admitted are 1 in 8.48. All Ivies aren’t alike, though; the odds an applicant to Harvard University will be admitted are 1 in 14.23, while the odds an applicant to Cornell University will be admitted are a much higher 1 in 5.24.

College basketball: an arena where sports, education, and business clash like three players leaping for a rebound. The season may end when the Final Four crowns a national champion, but debates about NCAA policy show no signs of letting up.

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