Former student-athletes are faring better than their non-student-athlete peers on a variety of well-being indicators, a new study released Wednesday shows.
However, the study’s author concedes that he can’t say if that’s because of the student-athletes’ overall collegiate experience or the traits they possessed before they arrived on campus.
“In any kind of study like this, social science research, it’s impossible, of course, to tease out causal attribution from this data,” said Brandon Busteed, executive director of education and workforce development at Gallup. He was referring to “Understanding Life Outcomes of Former NCAA Student-Athletes: The Gallup-Purdue Index Report.”
Busteed added, however, that there is a “very interesting, very powerful correlation” between former student-athletes and higher feelings of well-being on a variety of different measures.
Among other things, the study found that former student-athletes were more likely than their non-student-athlete peers to be thriving in the areas of purpose well-being (56 versus 48 percent); social well-being (54 versus 45 percent); community well-being (51 versus 43 percent); and physical well-being (41 versus 33 percent).
In the area of financial well-being, former student-athletes were as likely to be thriving as their non-student-athlete peers (38 versus 37 percent), the study found.
The study was based on a survey of former student-athletes who received a bachelor’s degree between 1970 and 2014.
