Eddie Landreth has a column up about early entry which we partially agree with: it's always the decision of the player. Other than that, though, we largely disagree.
Some guys are fine and set for life. Then there are guys like Clifford Rozier, Leon Smith, and Dontonio Wingfield, guys who made it for a time and then bombed out. They lost their "sure thing" money, somehow, and there they are, in their 20s or 30s, no skills outside of basketball, no career track, no hope for advancement. No one is recruiting them again to offer them an education, either.
It's great that guys like Vince Carter and Jason Williams will get their degrees no matter what, but there are a lot of guys who are not that disciplined. It is their choice, and they are free to make a bad choice, but that doesn't mean it's selfish to suggest that education is important. How much better off would Clifford Rozier be had he stuck out four years at UNC?
Education is vastly underrated, and as the aforementioned made it clear, having millions doesn't mean you have it made. If nothing else, a practical education would teach you how to keep your money, and a liberal arts education will teach you how to think and how to adjust to an uncertain world. This is a skill their erstwhile classmates mastered, and it helps the rest of us to figure out things like mortgages, college loans, and other incremental advances. All or nothing is nice when it's all, but when it's all then nothing, well, these guys lost their gamble, and lost huge.