for instance SUU has the best pre-med program in the state with a placement rate of almost 100%. Compare that to BYU's pre-med placement rate of about 50% and if that is your desired field, and you have a full ride SUU offer, and a PWO from BYU, then it is pretty much a no brainer to take the SUU full ride.

And you really don't know about the NFL and what the chances are there. Certainly it is a small fraction that move on to the NFL but you really don't know who that small fraction will be.

And really it is the grad degree that matters most, not the undergrad. You can major in business at SUU or ISU and get into a top grad program as easily as if your undergrad was at BYU or Utah.

Plus scholarship athletes certainly get more opportunities to prove themselves and play than walk-ons. Kids actually want the opportunity to play to going somewhere on a scholarship, with a school and coaching staff that is willing to pay a lot of money to have you there, is a vastly better endorsement of your opportunities than going somewhere that they don't think you're worth the money.

People who have never been college athletes, or whose kids are not college recruits, don't have the perspective of those who actually are in those situations. In fact most who never were athletes or who do not have kids that are college caliber athletes are really just fans of one particular school and are not looking at it from the same perspective as someone who has an actual vested interest in it.

I would only agree with you for very limited circumstances. The truth is schools like Weber, ISU, SUU and most of the Big Sky provide excellent educations and a kid can use his degree from one of those places to get into just about any grad program he wants provided he has applied himself and earned it.