I wasn't anywhere close to being an athlete in either high school or college, so I never would have been posed this question. Nor do I really follow football.
The headline of Frugal Dad's latest roundup, Turning Down Millions for a College Degree, makes reference to a statement by Andrew Luck, a superstar quarterback from Stanford University, that he intends to finish his architecture degree in 2012 instead of leaving to enter the NFL as a likely #1 draft pick. Tentative amounts for the contracts that I've read about are well into eight figures: around $50 million.
Now, again, this is merely a thought experiment for me, since I'm not an athlete. About as close as I could come would be if Wynton Marsalis heard me play my horn and pulled me aside to tour with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, some of the finest jazz musicians in the world. It would be like me saying, “Nah, Wynton, I'm going to finish up my physics degree.”
I probably would have said that, but I would have regretted it.
This post over at NCAA Football Fanhouse talks this up:
If Luck came out, he could buy the finest architectural firm in Palo Alto. He could exhume Frank Lloyd Wright, bring him back to life and have the great designer personally tutor him on the finer points of Unsonian construction.
Now Luck is risking a guaranteed palace for another year in a dorm?
We usually praise kids for staying in school, getting an education, having their priorities straight, blah, blah, blah. The strategy makes sense for about 99.92 percent of undergrads. Luck is in that ultra-exceptional 0.08.
Or, more tersely in the title: “Andrew Luck Clearly Isn't Thinking Like a Stanford Man,” meaning this doesn't appear to be the wisest decision for him.
I guess Mr. Luck — shouldn't his name give him a clue? — isn't bound by his intentions yet. Frankly, for all I know, he could be playing a little hard to get by his NFL courters in hopes of them sweetening the pot a bit. In which case, he would clearly be thinking like a Stanford man.
But let's take his statement at face value. Jimmy Napier said: “When someone puts a million dollars in your hand, close your hand.” If someone puts $60 million in your hand — one of the figures thrown around in the Fanhouse post — you should not only close your hand, but you should cradle it and run toward the goal line like it's the last play of the Super Bowl and you're down five.
Sixty million dollars throws off $1.2 million in interest per year at 2%. That's sitting in a freaking bank account. This would put him well in the top 1% of household incomes in the USA ($250,000 and up comprise about 1.7% of households, which consists usually of earned income from two wage earners). And that's just the contract to play. What about advertising deals? My goodness. This kind of opportunity comes once in a lifetime to only a small fraction of people. If he had any common sense he wouldn't have to worry about money for the rest of his life.
On the other side, an architect starts with a salary in the mid-five figures. This is after suffering through the degree (my wife's friends have called it “architorture”). That, and an architecture degree is a hunting license (though Luck's would be from Stanford). Real estate, especially in California, is depressed. When your job is to oversee new construction or modifications, there's not as much demand if people aren't buying buildings, or are buying foreclosed buildings.
That, and college in general is becoming more expensive every year, and the glut of college graduates gets worse each year. The “college is good debt” argument gets weaker and weaker each year, especially when it's possible to get a four-year college degree from an accredited school for $15,000, total. Not per year, total.
We're so conditioned to think that a college degree is the ticket to a comfortable life, that we miss big opportunities — like being the #1 draft pick for the NFL.
Close your hand, Mr. Luck.
That is a strange decision for the player. He can always get a degree when his playing career ends; he can’t play football later on. Use the most of what you have — not everyone can be first draft pick. It took a lot of work to get there.
Then again, maybe he just really hates football and couldn’t bear to spend the next few years of his life putting his body through that mess.
Mr. Luck is from the Houston area and his dad is very well known. His family is already well off so money doesn’t really mean too much to him. If I was in his shoes, I would stick with college too. One extra year living the college life probably meant more to him than entering the workforce, even if it is the NFL.
Great article which highlights a growing sickness in our society vs. Mr. Luck’s less-than-wise (IMO) decision. He truly does have a once-in-a-lifetime offer that most of us lowly earthlings will never receive, and he’s squandering it. Your last sentence sums up our society’s “conventional wisdom” beautifully. We truly are conditioned to go to college – at all costs. In the meantime, we’re churning out people in their 20’s and 30’s with crushing six-figure debts, dashed hopes that these debts bring about, and murky futures because the jobs they were hoping to get are changing too fast, disappearing, or being farmed out.
Skip the college, Mr. Luck. Go with the sure thing. For the rest of you young people – go to community college, vocational school, start a business, read used books or blogs for free or nearly so (if it’s truly only knowledge that you seek), or join clubs for the networking purposes you expected the frat house to bring you.