The economic mobility puzzle has so many pieces. There have been many good points raised in this discussion.
DD is a senior at Wake, DS will be a freshman in three weeks. I remember what a Wake football player told me three years ago when I asked about his major. He said, “I’d like to major in business, but I don’t think I’ll have time due to my football committment.”
Wake is the smallest of the “Power Five” athletic schools, and has a large number of scholarship athletes, many of whom come from lower income families. Academics are extremely time consuming at the school, especially in the preprofessional programs with high earning potential. I think the Business Enterprise Management degree requires 63 hours of study as opposed to 36 for most majors. Academic workload and extracurriculars likely sometimes conflict in a manner that might limit athletes’ choices to those with lower income potential.