An Idea To Lower Education Costs

Let me posit an observation: the NCAA Division I football divisions are, for all practical purposes, a minor league system for the NFL. The NFL recruits players who played at the DI level, and without the colleges there would be no way the NFL could survive unless it ponied up millions to create a bona fide minor league football system (similar to what Major League Baseball has).

Given that the NFL is the most profitable sports franchise in the world - even wealthier than English Premier League soccer - why not require the NFL to heavily subsidize the programs at DI football schools? After all, most DI football programs are not profit-makers like Michigan or Notre Dame. That money could help those programs. Better yet, require the NFL to create a fund that could be used by all colleges with football programs to offer

academic scholarships to athletes and nonathletes? Of course, this won't happen. The NFL is a business, and just like in Minnesota (where I am based), NFL leaders are experts at blackmailing and extorting state legislators and the public by threatening to move teams if they don't build new stadiums for their millionaire and billionaire owners. So they won't do it. But colleges should demand it, and so should parents who increasingly are watching their children get submerged by massive student debt.