here's how to fix the whole leaving early thing

first of all, scholarships need to be changed to multi-year commitments. the fact that you can offer a kid a scholly and then take it away a year later to give it to a better kid is ridiculous. but that goes for all sports. now to the football specific part. they should offer full rides in this fashion: athletic department pays 50% of the scholarship over the course of the student-athlete's college career. the other 50% is paid in the form of a student loan financed through the NCAA. If a student athlete decides to forego his 4th season in order to enter the NFL draft than he is on the hook to pay off this "loan." if the student athlete stays his 4th season then the loan is forgiven. now obviously there would need to be some extra thought about what to do with the special circumstances that can arise regarding the system such as Jeremy Hill (a true sophomore who is draft eligible on the 3 year rule). injuries would also need to be addressed in some fashion. also how the NCAA would go about funding such a program would need serious thought. but, in the long run, i think such a program could help encourage the kids who should stay in school the extra year to stay while not really deterring the ones who are NFL ready from leaving early. Obviously the NFL would need to be on board in order to make sure that teams and agents didn't guarantee that they would pay off the loans just to get kids to leave early

p.s. - obviously this will never happen but lets just speculate