I respect pedaldad's opinion - particularly regarding the competitive nature and the need to excel in terms of GPA, etc. I also applaud his acknowledgement that his opinion may offend some readers. I suppose I'll take exception to his opinion that STEM degrees, with very few exceptions, are the only form of degree worth paying for. The world is a better place with more passionate, young elementary school teachers entering the workforce, for example, is it not? Our son was a "dreaded" History major at a well-regarded HA liberal arts school, played ball all four years. I recall multiple 50+ page research papers on such scintillating topics as 1400's Japanese history, the Cuban revolution, Nicaragua, etc..., the reading requirements were heavy, and one could not breeze/skim the reading. Learned to think and write, dare shall I say, like a surgeon of the English language. The skills have served him quite well to say the least, post graduation.
It would be interesting to compare the attrition rates of non-athlete STEM majors to that of STEM athletes. Is the attrition rate greater for athletes? Maybe its the same, or less even? Our younger son is a non-athlete senior year Cell/Molecular Biology major. He stated overall attrition was pretty strong during/after Freshman year, and Soph year was when the hammer really dropped. These were not athletes. Anyways, this is a good conversation.