Dave Seminara reports in the New York Times today on a new MBA program for off-season athletes at the George Washington University in D.C.:
“Something like 75 percent of N.F.L. players are bankrupt within a few years of retiring,” said Doug Guthrie, the dean of George Washington’s School of Business, citing a statistic first reported in the 2009 Sports Illustrated article “How and Why Athletes Go Broke.” “We started thinking about this problem not just from the perspective of our business school, but for our society. If you give these people the right business skills and resources, what would it mean for society as a whole?”
Great idea. When athletes ignorant of basic economics go bankrupt, it’s a personal and family tragedy, but they lose only their own money. It’s congressmen and state legislators who really need this program, because they’re bankrupting the whole country. Can we make attendance at classes on introductory economics — heck, basic math — a requirement for lawmakers when they’re out of session?