I am a huge college basketball fan, my wife and I have been to three Final Fours, we even chose grad school based on the college basketball team. (She ended up at UNC for their last championship.) As a Texas fan I would have loved nothing more than to see Durant and Aldridge play on the same team. I would love to see guys stay for three, or even four years.
As a former teacher I also love education. I want to see thee guys learn, and I want to see them get all the benefits of an education. If I could, I would spend my entire life in school, just learning different things, education is an amazing journey, and I really want these guys to get that experience.
All that said however, I cannot sit here and tell these guys that they need to wait three years to make their money when they have the chance to make it now. If one of my students came up to me and said "Hey Mike, I was offered a job that will pay me seven figures for three, possibly four years" I would tell them to take it. If it doesn't work out, they should have plenty of time and money to come back to school for an education in something else.
If when I was 18, someone came up to me and said "We are willing to give you a job doing the thing you love most, playing basketball, but the only catch is that you have to do it for three years for free, and of course if you get seriously injured during those years, you may not get the job" I would be pissed.
Something needs to change, but forcing these guys to stay in school and take classes that they would rather not be bothered with is not the answer. We need to let these guys make money. Any other college student can make money doing the thing they love. If an art major sold $100,000 of their paintings their professors would say "Good for you!" but if an athlete tries to sell his autograph for $50 we say that is a violation and he has to be suspended.
No, the answer is not to just force guys in school, because it seems totally unfair that athletes are the only people we do this to. A computer science major can make money writing software in his spare time, we either need to let these athletes earn money (perhaps through merchandise, or maybe through playing in the summer in foreign leagues) or pay them a stipend with a decent insurance option in case they injure themselves severely. But I can't in good faith sit here and say they need to stay in school if there are people out there willing and able to pay them to do the thing that they love.