Eesh...here you go again. Making an argument in the face of what's going on in reality.
Please tell me where I've said we were on a level playing field with factories? In fact, I said the opposite: "
YOU are trying to make GT out to be this Fort Knox of getting kids into GT and keeping them in, when in reality it's obviously more difficult than factory schools but not impossible."
Your STEM issue would mean something if the large majority of our SAs were in fact STEM majors...which they are NOT. It pretty much levels the foundation of your STEM argument. Furthermore, as CPJ has proved recently despite some unfortunate recent academic attrition, GT can keep players eligible as we've had record graduation levels and APR scores.
As for your last question...are you serious? GT has one of the richest football traditions, we last won the National Championship in 1990, and won a conference championship as recently as 2009. But according to your logic, GT shouldn't even be competing with other teams. Yet somehow GT has been able to compete through the years...longest streak of having a non-losing conference record, one of the longest bowl streaks, multiple conference championship appearances (2 within the last 6 years...one win). Somehow we managed to do all that with a bunch of athletes who were not STEM majors.
Again, if you're going to make an argument, base it on reality. The reality is, when GT finally "gets it", they can recruit well. And we're seeing that right now with this recruiting cycle. Are you ignoring that as well because it doesn't fit into your antiquated recruiting narrative for GT?