It was broke. It had been broke. You could look back at any injustice that existed (we can get extreme here and mention slavery, women not voting, etc.) for a period of time and say "well, there hasn't been an apocalypse, so why change?" Right is right, no matter for how long it's been wrong.
I'm a leading proponent of "student first." In fact, my views are so extreme, that I believe every prospective student-athlete should first have to apply and be admitted, with the admissions office being blind to the fact that they're an athlete ... before a coach can reach out to a kid to try to convince him to attend his school. And students should only have 4 years to compete, with those years ending no later than at age 22. But, given that that's not going to happen, we have to deal with the hand we're dealt.
But this ("this" being this EO and the general sentiment of many interested parties) isn't about "student first." This is about schools and fans getting what they want, at the expense of the student-athlete. Schools want to convince kids to go there, and know that they basically have them locked in for as long as they want them (and can kick them to the curb whenever they want), so they have roster certainty. Fans want to be able to root for the same kids for a number of years, so it feels more "personal" and they can grow a rooting attachment, pretending that the kids share something with them, even though it's an illusion. But above all else, they want the highest quality product that brings in the most money.
It's not about the kids' education ... it hasn't been for many, many decades. I'm not going to relitigate this, but that was true even when your avatar was in charge ... kids on the team stated that they were told, regardless of their grades, they'd pass if they just showed up to class. And, as a rule (and, yes, rules have exceptions ... no need to point out that so and so was a math genius, and so and so accomplished this or that in life), these kids aren't graduating with meaningful degrees in challenging majors, anyway. Sociology, advertising/marketing, etc. In large part because the workload required to be successful in a major college sport is too hard to manage, while also navigating through a challenging major. In fact, various college sports typically "outlaw" kids from taking certain majors, because they're too time-consuming and/or they may have extra work that could conflict with training/practice. It was always humorous to hear commentary about so and so is majoring in Finance (a basic, acceptable major with a pretty pedestrian workload), so you know he's intelligent ... highlighting just how much of an exception he was.
I know a few, but not many. How many students do you know that went to a school because they thought they were going to get to study something, but then, when they enrolled, the school said they couldn't ... or they went there for the professors, and then all the professors left while they were enrolled there ... or they went there to study something, and then the admissions office recruited someone the next year to study over them? And so on. The point being, it's not an apples to apples comparison. The reality is, though, that students DO have that choice. Without any penalty or artificial restraint.
It's doing absolutely nothing to rein in the professionalization of college sports, allowing the powers that be to continue using these kids to make a whole lot of money, and it's taking away one of the few abilities that the exploited kid just obtained, to make the system a bit less exploitive.
The system IS screwed up. The solution isn't to attack the kids (and threatening the schools to make them comply in this), but to go after those in power, reaping the most rewards, to force them to fix it.
) deserve cream cheese on their bagels now. For me, cream cheese always screamed professional.