Penn State Wants To Change Focus of University, Should It Leave the Big Ten?

For a long time, Penn State has been synonymous with college football. But after the investigation into Jerry Sandusky and the subsequent firings of legendary head coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier, that all might change.

New president Rodney Erickson told the USA Today that he wants to shift the perception of the university from a football school to a “world class research institution.”

It is a noble idea but there really is only one way to truly accomplish this goal—for Penn State to leave the Big Ten. And make no mistake, that would be an absolutely terrible decision for the entire university.

The perception is that the conference is strictly about sports but that is absolutely not the case. The universities go out and recruit high school students, not just athletes, at large events all across the country. They are also all research partners and schools like Michigan, Northwestern and Wisconsin are some of the best in the country.

The football program is also the driving force behind the money that is brought in through athletics, $70.3 million of which came in through the team alone. That makes the team the third-most profitable college athletic program in the entire country.

Is the university really going to turn away all of those millions of dollars to become more of an academically focused institution? How exactly does the school afford new equipment or the hiring of professors?

And with all of the legal fees Penn State is expected to accrue over the coming years, they will need every penny they can get.

Additionally, moving the focus away from the football team in any capacity could also drive students away from the school. Penn State is one of the few universities that has stellar academics as well as a great sports program. That is a huge recruiting tool and the quality of students could actually diminish over time because of it.

If Erickson can somehow manage to change the national perception to a research institution and not a football school without getting out of the Big Ten, more power to him because I can’t come up with another way to do it.

But there are way too many drawbacks, drawbacks which could ultimately leave the school without as much prestige from academics, for it to actually happen. President Erickson is saying the right things but there is no way he can accomplish them.