The faculty Flutie factor: Does football performance affect a university's US News and World Report peer assessment score?

• Published in: Economics of education review Vol. 43; pp. 79 - 90
• Main Authors: Mulholland, Sean E., Tomic, Aleksandar (Sasha), Sholander, Samuel N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier India Pvt Ltd 01-12-2014
• Subjects: College football; Football bowl subdivision; National universities; Peer assessment; National universities; L83; Peer assessment; I2; College football; I23; Football bowl subdivision
• ISSN: 0272-7757; 1873-7382
• DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2014.09.006

•Fielding a FBS football team raises an institution's peer assessment score.•Success, measured by poll votes, raises an institution's peer assessment score.•A SD change in votes is the same as a 20 point change in SAT at the 75th percentile.•Performance matters even if we focus only on FBS schools.
Analyzing the peer assessment category of the US News and World Report's America's Best Colleges rankings, we find that universities fielding a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) team are more highly rated by administrators and faculty at peer institutions. Universities are also more highly rated if their 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 votes from one season to the next is associated with a peer score increase that is about equal (in absolute value terms) to the mean year-over-year peer score decline witnessed by the institutions in our sample. Performance matters even if we only focus on FBS schools.