Knowing the type of family he comes from, my guess is that he actually does make it to college. Of course time will tell for sure.
What has taken him to the #4 spot is his skill for his age (good enough to give pros all they can handle and to come out on top with them often enough at age 14) so you are only partially right. And it might just take him to the #2 spot.
Here is the current ranking which can be seen here
http://www.internationalpooltour.com/EventVoting/votingresults.aspx :
Vilmos Foldes Hungary 17.14%
Efren Reyes Phillipines 12.21%
Gerda Hofstatter Austria 9.30%
Austin Murphy United States 8.87%
Earl Strickland United States 6.09%
Everybody 6th place and down is at less than 5% and is probably a long shot at this point. Here are my thoughts. Vilmos Foldes (who plays great even though he does not have many US fans) is probably a lock at this point, so it seems it is only a matter of who his opponent will be.
I don't want to see Efren in this match because he is already scheduled for an upcoming challenge match (the next one I think?) against Mike Sigel and we will be seeing him very soon. I don't want to see Gerda who is probably not even in the top 10 women anymore. I do not want to see Earl because we just saw him in the last challenge match, and besides that he is a jerk who probably doesn't deserve another one of these matches so soon (even though he makes for fun viewing sometimes).
That leaves Austin, who is the best of those that still have a legimate chance of making #2 at this point, and is a good choice in his own right for several reasons. He is a good kid, who has his priorities straight and deserves a chance like this. He would be setting aside a large portion of any winnings for his college fund. He plays well, and would give a good match to anybody listed. He is American, and my national pride wants to see an American in the match. The novelty of seeing a 14 year old give an established pro all he could handle would make for a good match, especially if he were to pull out the win. And finally, even though he is not the favorite on paper, he does have a LEGITIMATE chance to win, and is not nearly the underdog that some believe. Unless something major changes, my votes will be going to Austin from here on out.
For anyone else that agrees, you can vote for Austin daily by going here:
http://www.internationalpooltour.com/EventVoting/