What's the real problem with college athletics?

Interesting post by Conor Clarke at The Atlantic about the college sports and their tax exempt status, as is being discussed by the Senate Finance committee. Clarke proposes that D-I sports schools should have their tax exemption revoked as an educational institutions because:

Colleges and Universities get tax exempt status because they are thought to be
providing a valuable educational service. And they probably are. But many of
those universities are operating athletic programs that are giant, commercial
cash cows. The Congressional Budget Office (pdf) says that between 60 and 80 percent of Division IA athletic department activity can be described as commercial. And while pulling in dollars hand over fist might have some educational value, I doubt it's what Congress had in mind.

So here's the trick: looking at another CBO report from 2003 by Bob Litan, Jonathan Orszag, and head of the OMB Peter Orszag, only 101 of 164 NCAA D-I schools turn a profit. Unfortunately, the report doesn't name the schools it looked at, but considering that there are at least 342 NCAA D-I schools I'm going to guess their investigation leaned heavy toward the Ohio State's, Duke's, and Florida's of the NCAA over the Stony Brook's, Quinnipiac's, and the Univerisity of Missouri - Kansas City's of the D-I world. And removing this tax exemption from these smaller institutions is very much unfair, both academically and athletically.

There is something wrong today with D-I college athletics and the institutions that sponsor them on the upper end of the financial echelon. The commercial prospects and marketability of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo is somewhere in the vicinity, I would imagine, of the Yankees' intertwined "NY" logo and Michael Jordan's Nike insignia. And some of these institutions cash in on their athletic prowess without doing justice to the athletes that wear their uniforms - sacrificing the human potential and failing to do to these young adults what their institutions primary purpose is: to teach.

The NCAA runs commercials during all of their televised events - most of these kids are going to "go pro" in something other than their sport and that's what their life will reflect, not necessarily the four or so years spent playing for College X. This is not true in all cases though- many of this radical fringe D-I schools shuttle these kids through their academic experience to let them flounder in obscurity after that NBA contract dissolves or NFL prospect flops. These schools look only at the finance books, not the human collateral they are creating in the process.

This is what the Federal government should be examining, instead of trying to scrounge around the barrel for money to take from the many D-I NCAA institutions that produce little-to-no profit from their athletic departments yet consistently high graduation rates and, more importantly, the real future leaders, the movers and shakers of the world. Kobe isn't going to fix the economy; LeBron isn't going cure HIV. Congress needs to help the educational institutions that are doing their job well, rather than condemning the entirety of D-I schools.

I would suggest targeted evaluation by the Senate and federal government. Those institutions that are pulling a big profit yet are failing to graduate and properly educate the vast majority of student-athletes from their biggest revenue producing sports (football and basketball, for the most part), look into them and punish them by repealing their tax exempt status if found of wrongdoing. They're the bad guys here. But don't hurt the schools who are doing a good job of developing strong, educated young adults from their athletes by cutting out a source of revenue to help in that process.