college sports and academics (now that football is over)

Here's a link to a USA TODAY listing of the top 25 college football and basketball teams, but rearranged to show the schools in order of graduation rates (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/2005-12-19-graduation-rate-chart.htm). BC slipped to third this year, but 89% is still fabulous (whats the overall college graduation rate, anyway?). Under this scenario, looks like USC will be playing in the Pets.com Kidney Bean Bowl, while BC draws the Orange Bowl. The basketball list is interesting, but the teams are so small and graduate so few each year, its hard to make much out of the differences. Duke is only at 50% but that might have a lot to do with players leaving for the NBA. Thats cool - I don't think players should be required to stay if they can make it professionally (this applies to Maurice Clarett as well, who was screwed over by extremely unfair NFL drafting rules). Athletes only have some many years to cash in on their altheletic skillz before injury or age make those skillz no longer marketable. When Mick Jagger dropped out of the London School of Economics to pursue a musical career, he famously remarked that he couldn't afford to stay in school. Its the same for some of these guys - I'm sure they too wish they could study the effects of speculative lending practices on agrarian market economies, but alas, pro sports proves to be lucrative diversion.