The Ivy League Muscles Up

"The old notion [in the Ivy League] is that athletes are treated no better than anyone else, and that's still going to be true," says Richard Vedder, an education economist at Ohio University. "But this is going to make them financially competitive in a way they weren't before. Harvard has always had a subjective approach to picking students—after all, they get more valedictorians applying than they have seats. Now expertise in throwing a ball around might matter. The probability of finding some Bill Bradleys has been enhanced."

The power of the big Ivies could expand in sports even more if the tuition revolution goes even further. At this point, Harvard can afford to provide free tuition to all of its 6,648 students. Given its $25.9 billion endowment, a 5 percent return on investments would produce almost $1.3 billion annually. With an annual tuition of $31,456, giving every student a full scholarship would cost less than $210 million a year.

Not so fast, says Dave Telep, the national recruiting director for scout.com, who says Ivy League programs face a long, tough road to putting an elite team on the floor. "This is certainly going to have an impact in expanding their pool," he says. "It's going to put guys on the map that weren't there before. It will have a big impact, but there's a cap on that impact."

"One in 25 guys who has that much value," Telep says, will choose an Ivy League program over other schools. "These guys want to compete at a higher level," Telep says. "Rare is the high-level basketball player who would pass on the opportunity to play in a high[-caliber league] for the academic rigors of the Ivy League. I'm not saying they're not there. They're rare."

Admission standards pose a rigid barrier to Ivy success. Ivy League programs require a minimum score of 171 on its Academic Index, a scale that takes into account several factors, including grade-point average, SAT scores and high school class rank. That standard is more rigid than the admissions policies of Duke, Vanderbilt and Stanford.

Harvard's basketball coach, Tommy Amaker, has been reported to be chafing against those standards. The New York Times has reported that Amaker's staff is aggressively recruiting some of the best high-school players in the nation, despite some questionable academic records. Harvard teams usually have had an average AI of 202, but Amaker has reportedly asked for a loosening of the school's standards.

For a recruiter as aggressive as Amaker—a former head coach at Seton Hall and Michigan, who played and coached under Duke's Mike Krzyzewski—finding the rare student-athlete might be possible. But the harder he pushes, the more he challenges the culture and standards of the whole Ivy League.