re: Russell Shepard on CBS news tonight.....

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It's not University's job to hand out diplomas to just anyone, but it is certainly the University's obligation to provide athletes will all available resources - study hall, tutors, etc to ensure that athletes graduate. This is especially true of athletes, whose schedules can be grueling, structured, and time consuming. The schools with the best grad rates for athletes tend to devote the most time and resources to their athletes.

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I agree 100%

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The story is absolutely true. LSU doesn't give a shite about getting their students through school

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Total BS!

I can tell you as a former LSU student/athlete whose son is a current LSU student/athlete that today, ALL students have access to resources to help them be successful and stay on course to graduate. Back in the day, athletes who were having trouble in the classroom were required to go "study hall" which was basically a bunch of athletes in a room for 2 hours with a monitor. The problem was that the only thing that was "monitored" was your attendance. You could basically read Sports Illustrated for 2 hours and nobody would say anything to you. Now, ALL freshman have access to First Year Experience (FYE) that in addition to providing academic counseling, helps with the overall transition from HS to college. They also now have dorms called "residential colleges" where students live with other students studying the same major live and study together and an faculty members keep office hours in these dorms and they encourage the students to take advantage of these academic counseling services. LSU's job is to provide student's the opportunity - not to guarantee their graduation.

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If you think any LSU football player has even stepped in a classroom, you are naive. FACT.

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Though I suspect you are joking, this kind of alarmist reporting leads an unfortunately large number of people to believe that is an almost totally true statement. There exists this perception that every athlete in every major college program is academically bankrupt. They believe that the athletes are either handed their grades without doing the work or even attending class, or they have all their work done for them, or they are otherwise cheating. It's an astonishingly pervasive and socially permissable negative stereotype that no football or basketball player can be smart enough to pass college level academics. This, despite the plethora of straight idiots that manage to graduate without being athletes and spending more hours drinking and partying then most athletes spend on their sport.

I had classes with several football and basketball players in my time at LSU. Granted, most of them weren't in my Chemistry 1202 class, but I saw more than a few of them who actually went to class, participated, and demonstrated an understanding of the material. One of our DBs was a year behind me Law School. A lot more of these guys are actually students than the media and others who traffic in negativity would have us believe. Academic fraud and cheating is an issue in major sports, to be sure. But to assume someone's not doing their schoolwork simply because they are a football or basketball player at a major college program is ignorance and prejudice at work.

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I had classes with several football and basketball players in my time at LSU. Granted, most of them weren't in my Chemistry 1202 class, but I saw more than a few of them who actually went to class, participated, and demonstrated an understanding of the material. One of our DBs was a year behind me Law School. A lot more of these guys are actually students than the media and others who traffic in negativity would have us believe. Academic fraud and cheating is an issue in major sports, to be sure. But to assume someone's not doing their schoolwork simply because they are a football or basketball player at a major college program is ignorance and prejudice at work.

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This is so true.....there are even more who are not delusional in thinking that they are going pro.....they know that this is it for them(in terms of playing their respective sport)and they need to make the best of the free education. They parlay it into all sorts of jobs and we see them we just forget that they also got their degrees .......

Looking at her finger, it looks like she succeeded in finding someone to marry her. Mom and Dad are not happy she blew the Episcopal education and hubby is probably upset that she is still spending, so he said get a job. Now her friends can't see her working at the perfume counter at Dillards.

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To this day I say that the best thing I ever learned at LSU was how to study, work, and learn--- and that NO ONE was going to help me to succeed except ME.

For this reason, I still maintain that goingg to a big state school with tons of distractions and students of all academic caliber has a huge advantage. It teaches self-reliance.

Is it taught in a sink-or-swim manner? Yep. But that is how life is. I think it is not only acceptable, but advantageous for a college degree to require a very large dose of 'want'.

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agreed. that maryland lady's quote was hilarious. ...ly sad.

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If you think any LSU football player has even stepped in a classroom, you are naive. FACT.

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Really? Have you ever been to class at LSU, because I've had football players in a lot of my classes and they're there most of the time.

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Anyways I'm not gonna go on a rant but c'mon man, don't just run your mouth about something you have no idea about.

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Well, allow me to run my mouth about something I do know about. I work with someone who showed up to her Psychology final exam and signed her name in and recieved an A. Chances are, she's not the only person in that class, and that isn't the only time that professor has done that with a class. Furthermore, if that professor can do this shows a total lack of oversight and leads me to believe the event isn't isolated. I guess my primary source that can confirm the event isn't as credible as your speculations. I see something laughable in this argument as well.
As for as the validty of this education and graduating "big tim[e] CEO's... and many successful people into the job market...", I find this to be what's laughable. This is a school, in which I personally know of two people who transferred from being on probation (at LSU) to making the Dean's list their first semester at Southeastern. If you're a wealthy, conservative business owner, or successful corporate parent, then you obviously send your kid to Southeastern if you know he or she isn't capable of making good grades (appearence) at LSU. After all, you're breast feeding them into their careers. You send them to Southeastern, where they are likely to make much better grades, and begin making the connections they need to enter a highly racially segregated business market preferably in some rural area... you know, away from those urban people. Most of all, you know they will have less of a chance from encountering those terrible politically correct organizations like feminist or gay rights, because displaying any tolerance or knowledge of such things will quickly land halt your corporate career in the deep south. To make what could be a much longer story short, it's pretty easy to see why people from Southeastern might 'make it' in the business market down here.

Now here's my question, how does someone from southeastern that made the deans list all four years in the college of business fail to observe basic principles learned in any entry level economics class? How does a girl I used to know from Southeastern with a degree in accounting (uh oh!) seem to possess the education and IQ of a 16 year old? I know of anwyhere between 30-40 people who went to Southeastern, but only one of them appears to have any level of intelligence what-so-ever.

Sure, southeastern has some good professors from LSU, and probably some bad ones that were released from their teaching privelages at LSU as well. So what?

Yea, LSU and Southeastern are both accredited universities. A highschool diploma and a GED are both "accredited" validations of that level of education. Hell, Baton Rouge Magnet Highschool and Broadmoor are both accredited highschools. While there are plenty of bad apples that make it out of LSU alive, as well as Southeastern, don't be foolish enough to claim that these two degrees are on the same level. Obviously this can be contextualized to program versus program, but I'm speaking broadly about Louisiana State University versus Southeastern. A school ranked and observed at a national level, versus one on a regional level.

If you want to continue to have this debate, then so be it, but do you really have enough "clue about" both of these universities to make such arguments... and if so, objectively?

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does anyone know that girl who was interviewed?

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Her name is Kendall Loftus (sp).

I think she is from Epsicopal (BR).

I didn't get the point of that story... are colleges supposed to hold your hand through graduation? The vast majority of college students are adults, albeit young, immature adults. Aren't they responsible for their own education? If you chose to blow off class and jack around you probably will not graduate. Is that a surprise to anyone?