Let me all pose a question to you. Suppose you are currently employed at a $40K per year job that requires a lot of work in and out of the office. Now this job may be difficult at the moment, but it will also train you well so you can get a decent job in the future. Probably nothing spectacular, but something that will pay you $30-$60K a year until you retire. That's a pretty respectable situtation.
However, what if you were presented with an opportunity to transfer to another job at a different company. This new job will have more responsibility, lots of required business travel, and doesn't have the greatest job security. However, your starting salary for this new job will be in the neighborhood of $1-$2 million dollars a year for four years, with the possibilty of a significant raise at the end of your fourth year of service with the company.
There is no absolute guarantee that you will get the new job. Would you take the risk? Would you look down on others who choose to?
I know many people would take the safe route here (I can't personally say that I would unless I knew the exact odds on getting the new job), but I can't say that I'd look down on others for choosing to try out this path.
But really, what I've just described is the proposition facing many college basketball players. Do they stay in school or try out the NBA? Too many sports commentators are too quick to tell players to stay in school. They argue that the graduation rates for many major programs are far too low and that it's a terrible trend. And I know that a college diploma is a great goal to strive for, and it would make many parents proud to see their son get one, but is it worth the chance at losing out at millions of dollars?
I know that there are a few issues that aren't presented in the above scenario. For one, graduating college does not mean you won't make it into the NBA, however it would mean that you'd cut into your productive NBA career by another 1-4 years (depending on when you leave college), costing you millions. But maybe you're game would improve in those extra years in college as you matured, hence lengthing your NBA career, thus making you millions more.
But to look at a similar situation in college football look at Matt Leinart (many of these points could be carried over to football as well, however with the NFL's policy you have to be out of highschool for two years before being eligible, so there's not so much jumping from college so soon). He won the heisman after his junior year, and was almost certain to be the first choice in the NFL draft, but he chose to remain in college another year. In the end, he slipped way down (mid-first round, big loss of money in the NFL). True he's still going to make millions, but he lost out on millions as well, and it's hard to say that he learned that much more in his final year of school (based on his hold-out this preseason I'd say he only learned how to be more of a big spoiled baby). A similar thing could happen if you have a great NCAA Tourny. Why not go out while you're stock is soaring?
You must also consider the odds of getting injured. If it happens in college, you're screwed. Not only do you lose out on the NBA, but you probably also have a chance at losing your scholarship and missing out on college as well (although I don't know how many colleges are really that cold).
But the biggest thing, what if you don't get drafted? This is always a concern with only having about 30-40 significant slots in the NBA draft (once you get too deep into the second round it's really not substantial). If you miss that you've given up your academic eligibility, so you're done with school (unless you choose not to hire an agent, an option that is too often not chosen; or you could choose to pay for it yourself, an option not really available to a lot of the people who make the jump). But if you were relatively sure that you would go in the first round and a half, why not give it a chance? Worse case, you go play in Europe or Asia. And maybe you can work your way into the NBA later. I mean it's not like too many of these "student" atheletes are gonna do much in the business world anyway. How many really attend classes or have a real major? My estimate of a stable $30-$60K a year job might be a little generous even.
And let's consider the idea of college being a $40K a year job. First, the $40K is probably a little high for most schools (although they are working their way up there), and this assumes that you get a full ride. Plus, being a student athlete means you most likely won't have time outside of school and athletics for a part-time job, so you're really not making that much money. You're more likely just getting enough to get by. Now I know that most non-student athletes aren't getting that much support, so I'm not saying you should feel sorry for the student-athletes, I'm just saying that when presented with the chance at going from just scraping by to being well off, most would jump at it. That is how the Lotto keeps going after all.
But let's look at best/worst case here. Let's pretend that you could be guaranteed an $80K a year job, with the kind of security that you'd still be doing it into your 50's (yeah, that'll happen). Or, you could get paid about $5 million over 4 years, and then disappear. Well you'd have to work over 50 years at your $80K job to get that kind of money. 50 years of work or an early retirement after 4 years as a failure? I think my ego could take the hit and retire at the ripe old age of 25.
So before you go on telling kids to stay in school, consider all the facts. No college can be expected to have a 100% graduation rate from it's sports teams. Hell no school has a 100% rate from the non-student athletes (I've checked and Cornell's is at about 90%, but that study was done by the school, so who knows how accurate that really is). If you really want to keep kids in college, let them get paid somehow. The schools certainly make millions off them and the NCCA tourney. You can't blame them for wanting a slice of the profits being made off of them. So until that day comes (probably never), stop trying to tell college basketball (and football) players that they have to stay in school and have a diploma to fall back on. After all, having a degree in Communications, from classes that you probably never really attended or paid attention to cause you were focused on making it to the NBA, isn't really something to fall back onto.