As a soon-to-be nuke that partied too much in high school, and got bored in college (and saw a bleak job outlook) I can debate at least part of that. The degree is just that, a sheet of paper saying you stuck to something for four years. However most colleges that have a higher standing will also have programs for co-op and internship opportunities. I would HIGHLY suggest finding a college that strongly supports those programs if you hope to find a good job quickly after getting a degree. Otherwise you'll end up waiting tables like my countless friends with their degrees in finance from last year.
The issue is not the college, but the individual.
Higher ranked colleges tend to have more motivated students; ergo, a higher percentage of those students go out of their way to do internships and gain some kind of work experience to set up a post-college hiring. My personal take is that a valuable college job (eg, not at McDonald's) is typically better than some internship somewhere, but like all things that can depend.
A college doesn't have to spoon-feed you an internship for you to be successful in the business world. Part of college is growing up and becoming independent...that means researching your own options and taking your own initiative to get it done.
And a degree isn't a free pass to a $50k/year+ entry level salary. Somehow our generation has been fed this flowery BS that going to college will guarantee prosperity. It's up to the individual to have the balls to go out and do it. Otherwise, you will just fall victim to the law of averages... you will graduate college, work in some menial job a high school dropout could do but requires a degree for some reason, and make about $30-35k/year.
My $.02.
I guess the real question I have is whether or not going through the Nuclear program will help with getting into a university after the 6 year contract. Say I finish my six years and start applying for colleges (I'm not really interested in going commercial nuke), will they disregard my horrible high school grades and I could possibly get into a top college, or will I be plagued forever with my high school grades?
Word from the guys who are getting out is that it's hit or miss. Some universities are like "gmo you went through the Navy nuclear pipeline?!? Well come on in!" while others are like "pffft, you must have joined the military because you're too dumb for college." The latter universities are incredibly stupid, of course, but academia has just a small history of being liberal elitist at times. There's also the issue of SAT's...I'm not sure if they expire or not. If they don't, then take them now before you forget all that 9th grade algebra. If they do, then you're going to have a bit of a challenge taking them 6 years removed from calculating the area of a trapezoid and finding the apex of a hyperbola.
My take is that you should do something because you
want to do it, and not because you like the pay/think it'll make you more competitive for XXXX/whatever. If you do what you enjoy (speaking of productive things, of course), and do it well, the rest will fall into place. If you do what makes you miserable, your performance will suffer, and you won't get what you had originally hoped or wanted out of the deal.