I'm very skeptical about this. What it's calling ROI clearly isn't: ROI is expressed as a ratio or a percentage, not a dollar amount. This might be a net present value, or just a total of earnings, but it's not ROI. And since the person who put together the data doesn't even know what ROI is, I seriously doubt that he did a good job with the rest of the calculations.
Edit: Of course, I do think that football recruits should be picking good academic institutions, and one reason (among many) for that is the financial return on a good education. But that financial return is a surprisingly hard thing to measure accurately, and this spreadsheet seems like it's not even close to providing a credible estimate.
Edit: Of course, I do think that football recruits should be picking good academic institutions, and one reason (among many) for that is the financial return on a good education. But that financial return is a surprisingly hard thing to measure accurately, and this spreadsheet seems like it's not even close to providing a credible estimate.