Maybe a lot of their students on sports scholarships can’t afford college unless they accept whatever scholarship(s) are on offer to them. It’s better for the “poor, rural kid” to go to university than to stay in his/her home turf after HS, mingle with their old homies and become accidental early parents, or worse, drug addicts. There isn’t much opportunity for young people in a lot of these states.
Maybe the kids on athletic scholarships might actually learn something while at university and decide what to do with their lives.
