Depending on the school they can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is not an exaggeration at all, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You get not just your tuition, books, and fees paid for but you get housing, food, stipends, cost of living allowance, and more. You’re literally getting paid. Even if your family can afford to pay for your school turning down an athletic scholarship and accepting a PWO is pretty foolish economically.

And BYU, or Utah for that matter, are hardly Stanford or Harvard, a degree from these instate schools hardly packs that sort of clout. Imo neither of them offers enough prestige to forgo several hundred thousands of dollars that another school is willing to pay to a kid just to get their logo on his diploma.

I think these kids should be grateful for any offer or attention they get from a school, no matter what school it is and no matter if it is a scholarship or a PWO. All of them show that the kid is good at what he does and a school thinks enough of him that they want him to come and be a part of their program. But turning down a large sum of money, and then spending a large sum themselves instead, is not a very wise economic decision and is also not a good decision as it concerns their opportunity to actually play. Kids that want to play should go to a place that really wants them and nothing shows them that they are really wanted more than a school being willing to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into them. When they do that they are going to get every opportunity to prove they can play. That is not the case when a kid is there on a PWO because there is no investment by the school so they have no risk. And yes kids want to play, they’re players, it is very important to them, every bit as important as getting an education. They’ve invested huge amounts of time and energy into what they do and they want as much more time as they can get playing their sport. Dismissing that aspect of it is inappropriate because it is very important. Remember life is about experience, and enjoyment. It’s notmall just about getting a slightly better, maybe, degree.