Why don't more good players skip a year of high school?

I'll call this a naive question, since the answer may be "many do." But I really haven't heard about it as a strategy and yet it seems so obvious. This is one of those big development-as-a-soccer-nation questions so I'll post it here unless a smart mod says there's a better place for it.

The question isn't so much for the Bradenton kids - they're probably the most likely to skip and either enter college or turn pro early. But it sounds like we have at least 5-10x that number annually at age 15 who are at comparable level but not in residency, and many many more who are a level below but could still develop into professionals in MLS, possibly even national team level.

Is there any reason to think that the last year of high school and club is more beneficial than the first of college (and PDL)? Granted you'd want to make sure you're playing or in a good environment to develop. And you'd prefer to be on scholarship, no reason to hurt yourself financially if you can avoid it. And not every 17 year old can take the physical pounding of NCAA.

But I'm seeing a big missed opportunity. Just to throw out a number, let's say 25% of elite soccer players currently finishing their junior year are academically capable of entering college in the fall. Maybe some of those aren't physically or emotionally ready or wouldn't benefit. Maybe some wouldn't earn a scholarship at the earlier age. But why not get more entering early?

Next step - why not sell the benefits to elite kids as they grow up that skipping a year of high school could be really good for their soccer development? If you're planning to do it from sixth grade it's pretty easy to skip a year at some point. If it doesn't occur to you until tenth grade then it's not so easy. Perhaps we could bump that theoretical 25% figure for elite kids up to 60 or 65% ...

What's the worst that could happen? We make the link of a better opportunity for a professional career to doing well academically so that you can skip a year. More kids with that big dream work a bit harder academically instead of just coasting. Sure most of them won't make it but that wasn't going to happen anyway.

For the first couple years it could be a bit odd to have the 17-year olds in college. But as more enter early and the average age comes down then it won't be so noticeable. College teams are going to be giving out the same number of scholarships - if they don't have a better place to be then why not get our elite kids in and out of college earlier?

(none of this is to say that we shouldn't still be building soccer academies connected to MLS teams as the best way to develop elite players and build the league)

 

So it sounds like we have a very limited sample so far. My question would be "how many 18 year-olds can currently get playing time for a good D1 program?" Because if the answer is still not many or a small percentage then it sounds like the issue is more about the tough transition into college and not about the physical differences between 17 and 18 year-olds. But we may have so few early entrants that we can't make the comparison yet.

I guess I'd propose a massive conspiracy against the NCAAs - if the best players are consistently trying to enter a year younger then the D1 programs will have to give them scholarships and the average age of competition will start going lower. It becomes easier for the 17 year to compete then.

I'm clearly not an expert here so I'd like to lure a few (like JohnR) in here. Isn't the tie between soccer development and grade year in school somewhat arbitrary? Can't get we get more kids to break that tie if they will see benefits?