Academics and the Student-Athlete To begin with, most student-athletes who enter college learn what it means to be a student-athlete, but they don't never truly realize life as a student-athlete. They are confident and even arrogant and say they are ready to take on this challenge. Becoming a successful student-athlete requires a lot of priorities, responsibilities, motivation and great time management skills. How are some student-athletes successful and others not? Major sports are ingrained in higher education and have become the public face of the university. Colleges struggle to balance how much of the athletic program defines the university. For some, the quest for sporting success has forced universities to compromise their academic results. The so-called student-athlete is expected to fulfill both roles. That of an athlete and that of a student. However, their commitment to each of these roles varies. At the Division 1 level, particularly in high-revenue sports, student-athletes are admitted for their potential to bring benefit to the institution. Influential critics of college athletes, Shulman and Bowen, authors of “The Game of Life,” conducted years of research at thirty universities in total. They found that today's athletes enter college less prepared academically and with different goals and values ​​than their non-athlete peers. Some universities receive around ten applications for a place in an entry class. Universities have difficulty making selections because there are so many applicants, and many of them have similar qualifications. Colleges take risks with some students, and when decisions become more difficult, admissions staff become swayed in choosing students by what really matters to the institution. Statistics clearly show that athletes receive preferential treatment during the admissions process. Athletes were 48% more likely to be admitted to college than normal students. College sports like football and basketball have brought in huge amounts of money for businesses and academic institutions for decades. According to Rheenen and Atwood, student-athlete exploitation has been a contentious issue within higher education for more than five decades. Even since players were labeled "student-athletes" in 1950, scholars and administrators have debated the extent to which the commercialization of college sports has turned student-athletes into commodities, excluded from the free market while their coaches, their institutions and their conferences reap the financial benefits. This is particularly evident in the revenue-generating sports of men's basketball and football. Critics have highlighted the excess earnings expropriated by universities to the detriment of these student-athletes (Rheenen, Atwood). Furthermore, there is a huge contradiction between this so-called arms race and the implementation of the NCAA's academic reform. On one side, there are institutions that put massive pressure on the coaching staff to get wins, which in turn generates revenue for the school. James Duderstadt, former college football player and president of the University of Michigan, "observed that universities exploit the athletic talents of college athletes for financial gain and public visibility, in part by tolerating low graduation rates of diplomas and meaningless diplomas in major subjects