I always thought the reason to play for an ivy was that you were smart enough to know you were many going pro and smart enough to care about the value of the degree
Used to be. However, the past decade or so, I think after the DOJ and the IRS started questioning the accumulation in the endowments and the lack of spending, the Ivies and a lot of the other well-endowed schools stepped up big time in their need-based financial aid, so that essentially if your folks make less than 100K, most of your tuition is covered by grants. I forget the precise cut lines. The biggest impact is on non-revenue / low revenue sports, but it also is some help to hoops. It takes the finances out of the equation for a lot of recruits, so it then becomes a pure opportunity question - will I play? will I get to show my skills? what is the quality of the competition? on the athletic side v. as you put it, the quality of the education and the doors opened by the degree. Having good coaches helps too. Jones, Amaker, Penn, Princeton all schedule tough out of conference teams (Away, of course), so you do get a bit of show casing. James Jones is pretty respected at this point.