--- title: Why Concussions Don't Keep College Athletes Off the Field description: How football players with concussions keep playing, the coming collapse of North Korea and more. canonical: https://time.com/4172780/concussions-college-athletes/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-08T17:08:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:38.637Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why Concussions Don't Keep College Athletes Off the Field og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4172780/concussions-college-athletes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Concussions Don't Keep College Athletes Off the Field twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why Concussions Don't Keep College Athletes Off the Field by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 8, 2016 5:08 PM CUT by [The Aspen Institute](/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jan 8, 2016 5:08 PM CUT **1\.** [**How can college athletes keep playing after being disqualified for multiple concussions?**](http://www.statnews.com/2016/01/08/concussions-college-football-players/ "undefined") By David Armstrong in Stat News **2\.** [**It’s not a question of if North Korea will collapse, but when.**](http://theweek.com/articles/597748/north-korea-heading-cataclysmic-collapse--nobody-cares "undefined") By Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in the Week **3\.** [**Learn how prisons are slowly breaking their addiction to solitary confinement.**](http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/solitary-confinement-reform/422565/ "undefined") By Maurice Chammah in the Atlantic **4\.** [**Who should the U.S. back in the Saudi Arabia-Iran dispute? Nobody.**](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/saudi-arabia-iran-213504 "undefined") By Stephen Kinzer in Politico **5\.** [**The secret to helping the blind see? Skip the eyes.**](http://fortune.com/2016/01/06/bionic-eye-monash/ "undefined") By Hilary Brueck in Fortune  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/ "undefined") _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4172780/concussions-college-athletes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4172780/concussions-college-athletes/"},"headline":"Why Concussions Don't Keep College Athletes Off the Field","datePublished":"2016-01-08T17:08:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:38.637Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4172780/concussions-college-athletes/","keywords":["Innovation","North Korea","Iran","Football","Saudi Arabia","Prison","blindness"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4172780/concussions-college-athletes/","name":"Why Concussions Don't Keep College Athletes Off the Field"}}]}] ```