If a college athlete wants to utilize a redshirt or Covid 5th Year, but has no desire to take on graduate school, is it true they can just enroll in a bunch of electives and moreorless academically coast for a year on the school’s dime?

22 comments

1. Pretty much. They’re going to have to be a good player, though. The school isn’t going to do it for a scrub.

2. Considering the school makes all kinds of money on this athlete’s labor, who cares what classes they take? “Oh, the defensive tackle is taking ballroom dancing and not Accounting Information System Design!” Who cares?

3. While I don’t know the intricacies of NCAA rules (does anybody?), I would expect that they’re able to.

4. I was under the impression most collegiate sports programs were self funded entities and any scholarships for athletes came out of that budget, but yeah very often they’ll take simple classes in order to focus on their sporting endeavors.

5. Why is this narrowed down to redshirts. This happens with first year college students too in high level football and basketball programs

6. Yes, and you don’t even have to be a full time student, just enrolled in some capacity. A lot of 5th year quarterbacks go this route, which allows them to be 23/24 year olds heading into the draft.

7. Yes, this is certainly something that happens somewhat frequently.

   As you mentioned it’s normally at the end of a student athlete’s career. Though in the “big picture” of things, I don’t know how much of a drain on the school this actually ever is.. A starting player who does this (usually) brings in way more money to the school for what they do on the field vs the tuition cost the school is eating for a bunch of ‘meaningless’ electives.

   Also more often than not, a student athlete who already has enough credits to graduate and does this to maintain eligibility is normally gone at the end of that semester anyway, so a football star isn’t going to stick around for another spring semester of ballroom dancing and water aerobics courses after their eligibility is up.

   Basically: a school will normally foot the bill of a single semesters worth of credits for an athlete who might help them win out a season because it puts them in a better position to negotiate future TV contracts and further their brand as it’s a low risk investment for them and a potential ‘win-win’ for both the school and the player.

8. That sounds right. As long as they are qualified to play, and they are wanted on the team.

   It’s a fucked up system but don’t lay the blame on the athlete’s doorstep. It’s a win-win deal at best, at worst it is exploitative of the athlete. Athletes aren’t getting a free ride by any means. They’re participating in sports at a level of competition on par with professionals, and all they get is free tuition and some minor perks, and a chance to get noticed and recruited for the big show where they can actually make $$$ – if they’re really good.

   The whole system is corrupt and exploitative, at least where the big $money$ sports are concerned.

   These athletes essentially risk their long-term well-being to subsidize the educations of people like me, who suck at sports but excel at academics. It’s fucking disgraceful. Whatever bennies they get along the way I don’t begridge them.

9. So for undergrad, you have to make progress towards a degree. You can’t just take whatever you want to kill time for four years. The NCAA has standards that indicate how much progress you need to make each year towards getting your degree.

   For graduate transfers or grad students continuing at the same university, the best I can tell is that they have to be enrolled in a full course schedule (as defined by the NCAA, which can vary by sport and time of year). They can enroll in a graduate program or, I think, a second bachelor’s degree program. They may even be able to say they are undeclared. In all of those cases, all they would have to do is follow their own institution’s rules about the courses that those students must take. Ultimately it probably leaves a lot of room to mostly do whatever you want if you don’t actually care about getting another degree.

10. It’s my understanding that if you have graduated and still have a year of eligibility left, you don’t have to do jack shit. I could be wrong tho.

11. Every school has their own internal policies

12. Being a Trekkie I have a completely different definition of Red Shirt lol

13. Might be correct. I remember Marcus Mariota at Oregon taking like golf and yoga his last year.

    Would be a good question to ask /r/cfb.

14. I have found that once you have enrolled at a university, even if you graduate or did so someplace else, they are more than happy to let you take other classes as an elective.

15. Likely. I know that the NCAA has requirements that you have to be working towards a degree.

    However I think we can all understand that the people who run the show know how to get away with basically random classes in a fifth year and still technically check off the boxes of the NCAA rules.

    I mean you could always say that the classes you’re taking are going towards a minor right?

    I think I would be much more surprised if I learned that nobody was able to pull this off. Considering the money in collegiate sports lol.

16. https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-footballs-best-player-doesnt-set-foot-on-a-college-campus-much-11576242004

17. > and moreorless academically coast for a year on the school’s dime?

    How is that different than what they already do?

    College sports are such a joke. Not the “sports” part, the “college” part.

18. It might depend on your stated reason for redahirrting

19. Coast on the schools dime? Lol, no. If you are on a scholarship program, you’re producing, not coasting. If you’re not on a scholarship program, you’re coasting on your parents’ dime, or you’re accumulating more student loan debt. In America, education is a business.

20. Sure they can. This is what many of them do Freshman – Senior year as well. They call it a General Studies major

21. A lot of athletes are already in bullshit degree programs and coast by so what’s the difference?

    And that obviously does not apply to all, or even a majority of college athletes, but it is pretty common at the elite levels of big money college sports.

22. You understand that they sometimes make the school millions of dollars, right? Universities aren’t going to take a loss on sports. They won’t give an academic scholarship to someone who can’t generate at least that same amount in revenue.