Is College Football ruining American Education?

One aspect of American culture of which most in other parts of the world find baffling is our obsession with college football... and the fact that we call gridiron "football" in the first place as opposed to soccer, but that's besides the point.

College football, as the name implies, is played at the college level, and by definition as well as in practice is an amateur sport. Many of the players are young adults who aren't even legally able to purchase alcohol in the US, much of college football's core audience of middle aged white men still see most other folks around the same age as these athletes as kids. I'd even argue that college football is closer in skill and experience to high school football than to professional football.

Despite this, however, college football is HUGE in the US... Not really here in Colorado where I live, the Buffs and the Rams do have a following primarily from folks who actually went to one of those colleges, but I rarely ever see Buffs or Rams gear in comparison to Broncos, Avs, Rockies, or Nuggets gear here, it probably helps that our state has all four major sports and even five if you count MLS, as well as the fact that our state is the most educated west of the Mississippi River, which I will get more into later on.

But go to Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, etc. and you'll find college football merchandise everywhere. Why? Why is American society so obsessed with such an amateur game? Could be because the US population is so spread out and many live within states which do not have an NFL franchise, but that doesn't explain why college football is so popular in states such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Ohio, or Michigan as those states do have NFL franchises. Could it be because colleges are more connected with the community and have more local players than the NFL does? That could maybe explain it.

Now, I myself do not care for college football at all, and do not follow any college football team in my state or otherwise. Granted, part of this is because I'm much more of a hockey fan than a football fan, but I do still follow the NFL and the Denver Broncos, I just don't care for the sport beyond the NFL. As for college sports outside of football, while I do support Denver University in hockey, even them I don't follow that much honestly. I really don't care for college sports in general, honestly.

But objectively speaking, I do not think America's obsession with college football is a positive thing. Matter of fact, I'd argue the opposite, and would even claim it to be one of the primary reasons why the American education system lags so far behind many other countries. Too many of our colleges are spending too much on their college football program, and are branding their merchandise primarily off of their sports teams instead of their academics, that these sports teams become the sole defining feature of what these colleges are known for. Students become primarily interested in attending these colleges for the athletics more than anything else, and primarily attend these colleges when they get paid to be a college athlete in the form of a scholarship. This isn't only related to college football, as college basketball is also a caveat here, but college football is the prime offender here given its immense popularity within the country. I would argue this heavy emphasis on athletics is at the expense of a better emphasis on academics. The US has colleges in every state, but only the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York have a 35% or higher rate of Bachelor's recipients, and none of these states are hot spots for college football. When you think of Harvard or Yale, for example, you actually think of these colleges first and foremost for their academics and not for their athletics, that's how colleges should be thought of. Same can't be said for many colleges throughout the southeast or midwest, however.

Granted, I don't think college sports are the only issue with the American education system or even the biggest one necessarily, as there are various other means that I think colleges should do to modernize for the modern age, such as abolishing textbooks, making courses more interactive, simplifying the amount of degrees available and offering lower quantity in exchange for higher quality, as well as finding a way to efficiently socialize college to offer it freely, or at least make it more affordable. But I do think college sports, specifically college football and to a lesser extent college basketball, are part of the problem as well, and measures should be taken by colleges throughout the US to reduce the emphasis on athletics and increase the emphasis on academics.

What do you think? Leave a comment down below to let me know your opinion.