A scholarship is worth, on average, about $29,000 a year. A college degree, over 40 years, is worth $1 million more in earnings than a high-school degree. Not bad, if every athlete got a degree. Too many don’t. The six–year graduation rate of all Division 1 athletes who started college from 2001 to 2004 was 64%, according to the most recent Education Department data; football players in the top-tier lagged at 56%. That’s not far from the national graduation rate of 62% for all students, but rates vary tremendously among institutions.
That being said, student athletes should start showing more interest in graduating college than worrying about receiving a paycheck. If they work hard enough and end up making it to the pro level, then they will get the paycheck that they have been working hard and waiting for all this time, isn’t that what most players dream of since they were kids? Or is the money factor all that they care about now? USA Today also stated, “Ultimately, less than 2% of college football players end up in the NFL. They’ll do fine financially. For the other 98%, a meaningful college