Today high school and collegiate athletes are leaving school in record numbers; the race for the almighty dollar has reached supersonic speeds. Many of these students are leaving for the sole purpose of achieving financial independence, while others are foregoing their higher education efforts because they find themselves ill prepared to tackle the academic rigors facing college students.
To many of the youngsters, the idea of becoming financial independent at an early age (recently some under the age of 15) is an overwhelmingly convincing reason to forgo their education. These young athletes are receiving lucrative deals worth millions of dollars when they are still in the developmental stage of their life, still very nave to the ways of the capitalistic society in which they live. They become caught up in a society that has placed the value of the dollar ahead of social development and are not prepared to turn down such offers. Many of these young men and women are becoming millionaires, literally, overnight; signing contracts and hiring agents and managing expense accounts that the average citizen won't see in a lifetime. Their overnight successes are eradicating generations of poverty and second class citizenship. To the thousands of youngsters watching the very few success stories, the gamble is worth taking.
As for the second reason, kids are jumping into the professional sports realm before their time because of a systemic problem occurring in the inner-city schools. Countless stories have been told of high school students graduating without the ability to read and write or accomplish the basic math of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. And as a result of these stories hitting the media, schools began monitoring student progress more closely. .
Today, as the job market becomes ever more competitive, college degrees are becoming ever more prejudicial in acquiring even entry-level positions.
