Lebron James never attended college. He was signed to the N.B.A. directly completing high school. Unlike most other N.B.A. players he never got a college scholarship. Giving scholarships to what are basically pro athletes is corrupt.
Colleges should give scholarships for scholarship; not sports. Sports in college should be intramural and purposed to build up student health. Colleges really ought to get out of the big man on campus sports focus and look toward becoming the best in the world with intelligence and education.
The United States has innumerable empirical challenges to day that can be solved only with better education of the populous. Better politicians, a better informed electorate, better philosophers,more quality scientists and a wealth of social science innovators need arise to overcome the reef of ignorance surrounding the island-like nation as if it were a coral atoll.
Pro entertainers comprise 5% of the top 1% of the nation’s richest. They provide good cover PR for the super-rich that don’t wish to be regarded as Scroggishish misers calculating like 100 lb weaklings how to skim off wealth from everyone in the country. Pro athletes in college should not receive scholarships though it is often touted how much revenue college sports- especially football bring to colleges. Creating an intellectual atmosphere on colleges is difficult enough without making colleges something like vast left-wing upper high schools churning out mediocrity to rise in business to make the nation a compliant plutocratic corporatocracy.
Colleges need to work hard to create a culture to support and develop intellectual excellence. It should not be a demographic dumping ground for quotas nor a place for developing athletes for pro sports. Sporting leagues should pay for their own minor leagues to develop prospects. Athletes that want to work in pro sports and yet attend college should receive scholarships solely on intellectual merit. Fundamentally the two activities should be separate.