USA Today: College athletes studies guided toward ‘major in eligibility’

You mean that in the name of the APR and graduation rates student-athletes are being steered towards easier majors? Who would have ever seen that coming? Read the article for an insight into the wonderful world of unintended consequences and human nature.

The bottom line of course is that the NCAA is more or less powerless to do anything but wag their finger at the practice. So long as the student-athlete is making academic progress in a legitimate course of study at a member school, there is no differentiation between a social sciences major at Kansas State and a biochemistry major at Columbia.

“There are limits to what the national office can, and should, do,” (NCAA President Myles Brand) says. “Anything to do with the academic programs really falls entirely within the purview of the individual institutions.”