Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only we used all of that money spent on football programs to pay for higher education for poor kids. Wishful thinking I know.
There's an argument to be made that football helps a lot more than just the football players. At most big football schools, the money they make from football pays for all of the athletes in all sports, men and women (along with the basketball profits to some extent). That's a lot of student athletes getting scholarships, and most of them don't continue in their sport after graduation.
There are major downsides too: The kids are often used; they work incredibly hard, get paid nothing, and then get tossed in the gutter unless they make the NFL. Literally, I've read many stories where the coach stops talking to the kid (remember, 18, 19 years old often) and then someone gives him a bus ticket home - so much for education. The great majority of those who stay don't make the NFL; they leave with a lifetime of injuries, poor education (because they were discouraged from taking serious classes and often don't graduate), and no skills or prospects. The school, however, made tens or hundreds of millions, the coach made millions, TV networks made millions (billions?) ... a great business having free labor.
Also, the money and the intense loyalty invites incredible corruption; almost every leading program has had major corruption problems, with Penn State being the worst (systematic child rape covered up for years, so that the football program wouldn't be disrupted).
EDIT: Major edits