NCAA Athlete Pay

Although, when looked at in comparison to other major national problems, college athletes being paid doesn’t seem to be a huge issue, the people who are advocating for college athletes to be paid can end up ruining college for everyone else. Many college athletes already benefit extremely from programs put in by their colleges (Allen, 2019). If we allow college athletes to get paid on top of all their benefits already, the price of everything for regular college students will increase, and it is simply not the college’s job to pay for their athletes.

According to NFL reporter and NHL columnist, Kevin Allen, there are many not-so-small benefits college athletes have over regular college students. In one of Allen’s interviews, where he interviewed former soccer player at Appalachian State, Chad Hawley, Hawley mentioned that college now isn’t what it used to be in the past for college athletes. Hawley said, "There's been a trend that goes beyond the last 10 years or so of allowing more benefits.” And that’s because of things such as the student assistance fund, which was put in place to help D1 athletes take care of other “essential needs” but those needs vary from things like summer school to traveling and buying clothes, and paying for parking fees. College athletes also get little benefits that keep adding up, such as their ticket allotments, or the unlimited snacks and meals they get. College athletes already receive so many benefits and to add to it is just not fair to regular college students. Along with that, guess who would end up paying for these athletes? Other regular college students.

Matt Krupnick, a reporter and editor who contributes to the New York Times, wrote a piece on how your tuition bill could increase if college athletes started getting paid. Most of the research was backed by a survey by the nonprofit Center for College Affordability and Productivity. The survey ended up saying that at Ohio University in 2010, “41% of revenue from the general fee of $531 per quarter for full-time students in 2010 went to intercollegiate athletics, but 54% of students didn’t know it” And on top of that, 81% of people in the survey after said that they opposed raising the number of their fees that went to the athletics program, or wanted it reduced. That was in 2010 before college athletes started receiving all the benefits they receive now. Imagine how many other hidden fees regular college students are paying that go towards college athletics. Paying college athletes would just increase the fees regular students are paying. And is the purpose of college really to make money?

According to the Wright Foundation, a foundation that is meant for teaching social and emotional intelligence skills for life, the purpose of college is to obtain higher education and gain new skills. It’s about growth and getting experience. Paying college athletes takes away from this. Instead of focusing on getting a better education, college athletes would in turn just focus on the money. It takes away from what college is actually meant to be. The majority go through college to get a degree and get a better job with that degree. Paying college athletes would ruin the flow of that.

On the other hand, college athletes do help out their schools a lot. Without them, a lot of d1 schools wouldn’t get the representation that they have now. According to Mark Drozdowski, a senior writer with BestColleges who also has 30 years of experience in higher education, college sports for schools and sponsors are making billions, and the athletes are getting none of that. But just because they don’t get paid a salary does not mean that they are not getting reimbursed for their athletics in other ways. They still getting their scholarships, sponsorships, free meals, and tons of other small benefits. (Allen, 2019)

Should college athletes be reimbursed for what they do and bring to schools? Yes. Should that be with a salary? No. A lot of college athletes already get a bunch of benefits from doing what they do(Allen, 2019). Giving them a salary would not only be unfair to the regular students at colleges, but it would take away from the purpose of college (Wright Foundation, 2021). Maybe in the future, we can look to see if giving college athletes a salary is the right thing to do, but as of right now, they should stick with what they have.

Would you be okay with working and not being paid? That's what college athletes have been doing for years. The NCAA has prohibited college athletes from receiving a salary/money that has anything to do with their athletic ability. This included their social media accounts, any brand deals, or anything other than the scholarships given to them by the school they attend/play for. In recent advancements in the policy, athletes have been permitted to profit off of their NIL (name, likeliness, image) and can now make money off of the opportunities brought by them (Hosick, 2021). The issue that many college athletes were/are having is that they spend most of their time in their respective sports and schooling, leaving little to no time for social lives and working.

NCAA in the past has prohibited tremendously the outlines for College Athletes in regards to having jobs and working for their own money. A past policy stated that college athletes could only work in the summer and school breaks when approved. They did this not to prohibit athletes from getting their own money, but to try and limit college athletes from getting taken advantage of by boosters, (Greenlee, 2007). In theory, this is a good idea, but College Athletes range from 18 to 22 in most cases and should be entrusted to make those decisions on their own.

Colleges are profiting majorly from their athletes and the money doesn't go directly to the athletes or to the programs. A program in Lousiville generates about 45 million dollars a year, and yet only about 400,000 dollars go to the athletes. They give out about 13 scholarships which add up to 400,000 dollars and the rest goes to the coaches. Coaches who are already making 8 million dollars a year and assistant coaches who are making half a million dollars a year, (Dwyer, 2019). Does that sound fair to you? Give millions of dollars away to Coaches who are already stacked with money and giving almost nothing to the athletes? 86 percent of these college athletes are living under the poverty line, they are pulling these athletes out of low-income homes and giving them no money for compensation, (DeWitt, 2019).

Keeping the idea of Amateurism is a major reason why there is such a push back on college athletes getting paid, (McInerney, 2021). The whole idea is that they want these athletes to understand that they aren't pro and should focus on the education that is being provided to them while they are playing. Colleges believe that most of the athletes aren't going pro and won't have many if any opportunities to play in a higher position. Hypothetically this would be a somewhat reasonable argument but when the pandemic hit and all these athletes couldn't play their sport and businesses shut down what happens then? They weren't able to receive the in-person education that they were being given and they weren't benefiting from any of the living scholarships because they were sent home. Going back to many athletes who come from homes that are under the poverty line when they were sent home that added to what their families had to provide. If the athletes had been provided with some type of salary or some sum of money that would have lightened the weight that their families had to deal with when they returned home.

In conclusion, college athletes should be getting paid. Their skills are being profited off of and they are getting little to nothing in return. Colleges are continuously taking advantage of them and exploiting them and the system. Coaches are doing the same thing and endorsing it and it is very unethical. These athletes need more than a couple of scholarships when most of them are being pulled out of homes underneath the poverty line. They should be getting paid from these colleges when the programs are racking up millions upon millions of dollars every season because of their athletes. College athletes give up their bodies, their time, and sometimes their futures in these sports. Colleges either need to give out more beneficial scholarships or start giving a salary to them. Brand deals and small scholarships are not enough to give these athletes and it needs to change now.