Not many people know the obligation of being a student athlete in college. This burden set on them has caused the graduation rate of scholarship players to average at about fifty percent from 1995 to 1998. In order to be eligible to play, the athletes must be full-time students , which means taking at least twelve units a semester. Because these athletes are taking so many classes, they must make time for a considerable amount of studying and homework. Then add up the amount of practice their sport requires and I doubt they will find a second to rest. Student athletes are the hardest working students in college. Most student athletes have a demanding and rigorous schedule. This is partly because of the required twelve units minimum a semester to qualify as a full-time student. Without the full-time student status, they would be ineligible to play sports. That means at least three hours a day of courses on average. My schedule was at one point similar to this, in that I was taking eighteen credits in one semester. It averaged out to about three and a half hours of class a day. Scheduling the class times can also be a burden. You need to schedule according to practices and game time. I have noticed that students who play sports have a harder time staying awake in class because of lack of sleep, myself included. These could all attribute to the recent fall in the graduation rate. Another challenge student athletes must face is finding time for studying and homework. With classes half the day and training the other half, that leaves the night for studying. Most athletes do not get started until about eight o"clock because of late practices. Even if the athlete had only two hours of homework they would not get to bed until two o"clock in the morning. Many students have jobs to support them because they do not have full scholarships. Jobs take even more time away from study. At one point I was juggling baseball, school and a job.
