I operate a
I work in the media world and operate a business and do the hiring and unfortunately the firing sometimes. A diploma isn't a set in stone requirement and I don't think it prepares them for their career but there are many professional fields where you can't even be considered unless you have the degree. You have to apply online and without that piece of paper you can't even get started no matter how skilled you are or what ever may have held you back from going to college.
If you use your head and make a wise choice in what you study, the college degree that these guys are basically guaranteed along with the exposure and name recognition are worth much more than any pay day they might get for playing college football and even more than a player who turns pro, gets drafted in the second round a plays for an average length pro career. When you consider the percentage of that college scholarship athletes that make it to the pro's, more or less the 1st round of the draft... the education they get is much more valuable that getting a small paycheck in college, or even most pro careers.
I don't argue that the new college graduate has a harder time finding work or that the college degrees are easier to get. But some of that is due to the quality of the kids that are graduating and what skills they have not just the diploma. You would not believe the number of people that I have interviewed that, have a degree but don't know how to communicate.. how to meet a client face to face and carry on a conversation, how to talk on the phone, how to draft a letter, how to attend a client dinner and use proper etiquette or even how to be punctual and dress/look appropriate for business.
Even in my day a kid, coming out with a marketing degree barely new **** about marketing but they had other skills that allowed them to learn on the job. Today's young person have no manners, can't communicate well, know little about respect and have almost zero work ethic or ambition. That isn't the colleges fault that is the parents! While the colleges may be failing them too the primary thing holding these young people back are basic life skills that are lost in today's society.