The Faculty Flutie Factor: Does Football Performance Affect a University’s US News and World Report Peer Assessment Score?

Mulholland, Sean and Tomic, Aleksandar and Sholander, Samuel (2010): The Faculty Flutie Factor: Does Football Performance Affect a University’s US News and World Report Peer Assessment Score?

Abstract

Analyzing the peer assessment portion of the US News and World Report’s college rankings, we find that administrators and faculty rate more highly universities whose football team receives a greater number of votes in either the final Associated Press or Coaches Poll. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, our estimates suggest that a one standard deviation increase in the number of votes received in either the Associated Press or USA Today Coaches’ Football Poll is viewed as positively as a forty point increase in a school’s SAT score at the 75th percentile.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: college football, football bowl subdivision, national universities, peer assessment
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I20 - General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I23 - Higher Education ; Research Institutions; L - Industrial Organization > L8 - Industry Studies: Services > L83 - Sports ; Gambling ; Restaurants ; Recreation ; Tourism

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