I'm President of SCUtd FC Development Academy - but this is my personal opinion and not a club position:
USSF created the Development Academy after studying many youth soccer programs around the world. The aim is to develop a broader, deeper and better pool of men's soccer players from which our national teams can draw. The focus is on player development - full stop. Team performance (wins and losses) is only incidental to that focus, and not a focus in itself. The Federation is much more interested in how many players a club places in a national team pool than it is in the number of games a team or club wins.
Academy clubs are about identifying and training the best players they can find and giving them the opportunity to play a game schedule that is highly competitive and challenging each and every time. No one expects many Academy players from any particular club to make national teams or play professionally, but some will. Because they tend to be the best of the best, nearly all will play in college if they want to do so. Most colleges, particularly D1, now focus almost exclusively on the DA. Any exceptions just serve to prove the rule. All one has to do is look at the commitment lists and the clubs from which the players are coming.
In my opinion, HS soccer impedes the development of elite players. It is an interregnum of generally poor competition where even the very best teams only play a handful (if that) of competitive games in 20+ game season. That said, there are other factors (school spirit, playing with and in front of friends, etc.) worth considering. I have no idea whether those factors will carry the day in the long-run on the HS/no HS debate. For me, the question is: Is it "better" for a young man to play what amounts to an all-star game every weekend or not? I say - yes. But, reasonable minds can differ.
