Actually according to the latest information on graduation rates, student athletes graduate at a higher rate than the average student body. The graduation rate of football players in particular is almost even with that of the student body. Whats more, black football players graduate at a much higher rate than the average black student body.
That doesn't square with what I read about a month ago. In that study Notre Dame and I think Northwestern had relatively high rates of graduation but many, many schools (Most of the big time names) had rates that hovered around 50% or less, I'll try later to get the article and post the reference.
Here is one reference source but it is not the article I mentioned. In that article the point was made that, in general, graduation rates for student athletes were significantly below the school averages for all students.
http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2004/Preview/ProgramRankings_GraduationRates.htm