Finally an intelligent person has written to the Post with a well thought out and very academic opinion!  If someone did a survey that this person has suggested and it still came out with a negative view of Athletics then I could deal with that.  But this is why I never trust surveys because people are always taking shortcuts or setting them up with some kind of bias, very few seem to actually do it the right way.

Ben, please see my response to DA in another thread to get a clearer picture of what I've been saying.  Also, has anyone actually seen this survey?  If so, please post it here so we can read it and offer our comments and perhaps criticism.

As for this letter to the editor, this is the first I've seen it.   Based on the writer's Linkedin profile, he does have a good deal of credibility in the field of market research which this survey claims to be.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/caryovermeyer

The whole study and related survey can be found at the Center for College Affordability & Productivity webpage here:

http://www.centerforcollegeaffordability.org/uploads/Funding_the_Arms_Race.pdf

Actually, anorris, it might be misleading, because there is no way to know to what extent the sample was representative of the population of all Ohio Athens campus students (minus medical students, I believe).  This study has no generalizability.  In the total population the ignorance level about those fees might be more or less than reported in the graph. 

And to think I'm using a Center for College Affordability study as a source for my next cluster project.  

Yesterday's Messenger also had a letter to the editor (from a different person) pointing out some of the flaws in Vedder's survey... mainly, the very small sample size and the fact that the sampling wasn't random -- the survey was conducted online and solicited voluntary responses, so people most likely had a strong opinion one way or another or they wouldn't have responded in the first place.

The author of the letter pointed out (very politely) that Dr. Vedder needs to stick to economics and leave conducting surveys to people who actually know how to conduct surveys. But I highly doubt that will stop the 'anti-athletic league' faculty members from using those survey results to further their arguments.

lol... I just re-read OCF's post above and realized the letter I'm talking about must've been the one he wrote! Good job, OCF!

Thanks, Athena. Yes, that were me! :-)

One minor correction on your otherwise fine summation of my letter.  The sample size was not the problem, it was the lack of randomness.  I pointed out that a SMALLER sample would have been better if it had been chosen randomly and efforts had been made to get a reasonable return rate.  Heck, you can get a fairly good indication of the electoral leanings of the whole State of Ohio with a sample of less than 1,000 if it's done randomly and other good survey techniques are utilized.  

OCF has hit the nail on the head with all of his posts on this subject. A sample size of 400 is plenty as long as the variable in question is dichotomous and the sample is RANDOM, which this one was not. There is no way you can generalize from this survey and I'm shocked that Vedder's team would even publish such a report.

I'm a research assistant at the Institute for Public Administration at UD and we would never conduct such poor research. We turn down clients who come to us asking for data to back up their forgone conclusions. A true research question must be objective and neutral to be of any use. 

I find the approach highlighted above to be highly un-American.  I trust that your firm is having financial problems given it's controversial, fringe approach?