Essay On Why Student Athletes Should Be Paid

There are about 480,000 student-athletes in the United States and none of them are getting paid to play sports in college even though they are practicing for over forty hours per week. Some people say that the student-athletes have already gotten paid with scholarship money, however, they don’t get to choose where that money goes. Scholarship money that they receive goes toward tuition and room and board. College athletes often need money to pay for food, but unfortunately they can’t use that scholarship money. College student-athletes should be compensated because it will increase the graduation rate, they have no time left to get a job, and they deserve a fair share of the profit.
About fifteen years ago the controversial topic student-athlete
compensation started becoming a topic of discussion. It has always been talked about, but nevertheless was not always seen as a big deal. A lot more people are realizing how much money colleges are making from these athletes. It is a law enforced by the NCAA that student-athletes can’t sell memorabilia to fans because of who they are. They can’t sell anything or do anything related to them being a college athlete to make money. Johnny Manziel has gotten in trouble for breaking this rule on multiple occasions. He was caught selling pictures with fans for $50 and autographs for $100. He was selling items in college because he was very popular. It is completely legal to sell merchandise after you graduate from college.
College student-athletes often don’t want to stay in college if they have the potential to play professional sports so they result in leaving and not finishing their degree.
About 67 percent of college athletes graduate and earn a degree. The NCAA states that institutions have to maintain an average of at least 50 percent of their athletes graduating. People want to be paid and that is what society is based on. Most people believe that they would be happy if they had all the money that they want. Why wouldn’t a college athlete want to leave college if they could get paid? Most college athletes do not go on to play professional sports, but of the people that do, about 60 percent of NBA players go bankrupt within 5 years and 78 percent of NFL players. This happens because these athletes are coming out of college early and don’t have a chance to learn how to financially provide for themselves. College athletes are spending about 39 to 43 hours per week of practice which is about the same as working a full time job. The average college athlete earns only about $38 per week from scholarships, which comes out to be a little under $1 per hour.
This is another reason why athletes don’t stay in college. Why would an athlete want to stay in college where they have to try to get school work done while going to practice about 40 hours per week? It is very hard for a student to maintain grades good enough to obtain a degree when they don’t have time to study. Each student-athlete might have an hour or two of free time during the day, but they will use that time to eat and have a social life. There's a lot of money made from college athletics and the athletes that earn it do not receive any take home cash. The NCAA makes 8.8 billion dollars from the college basketball tournament in March every year and none of this money is distributed to the athletes. A lot of the basketball games in the NCAA tournament telecast on CBS. These 2 organizations made an $11 billion deal from 2011 to 2024. All of the college sports bring in some sort of income and even though some bring in more than others, there is still a lot of money.
Some college-athletes are so dedicated that they don’t feel like they need money, but a vast majority of them want to be paid for all of the time and hard work they have put in. Some people think that the student-athletes are already getting compensated well enough from their scholarships and everything is provided for them because they are a college athlete. A lot of the college athletes are getting their whole tuition paid for from their scholarships, so they aren’t in need of more money. Although their scholarships will pay for a big portion of the total cost of college, they won’t pay for food and any other expenses of a college student. At the average division 1 college the total cost of everything provided for them would be around $30,500, so they are basically getting paid by not having to pay for all of these accessories. Even though that is a lot of money; the average college athlete would make more money than that if they were on an hourly wage.
One of the few reasons that athletes shouldn’t be compensated is that they are participating voluntarily so there is no need for them to be paid.
Every time an athlete plays their sport they are risking an injury, but they are most likely not getting forced to play. Although some people might get forced by family or friends, most people are playing college sports by choice. Even though athletes are participating by choice and putting themselves in danger; they are helping each program be successful and college athletics wouldn’t be anywhere without the athletes. The coaches get paid a lot of money, but the team would not exist without the players. College sports teams would still be able to function without coaches even though they might not function very well. Another problem is that it would be very hard to determine how much each athlete should be paid. If pay was based on performance it would cause a lot more stress in college sports, which isn’t right because they are ultimately meant for entertainment for the athletes and viewers. If college athletes get paid based on how old they are and what school they go to, it might make them lose heart and make them forget what is really important. It would be a shame if they stopped pouring their heart out every single game if money got involved. These athletes should be paid based on their performance and it would not be a problem because they would try harder than ever and college sports would be even more competitive than they are
today.
College student-athletes should be compensated because it will increase the graduation rate, they have no time left to get a job, and they deserve a fair share of the profit, but some people think that athletes don’t need to get paid because they are already receiving enough money from scholarships, they will stop pouring their heart out every game, and it would be too difficult to figure out how much should be paid. The argument for athletes being paid is better because these athletes are the reason that some colleges have enough money to function and they deserve their fair share. So many professional athletes become bankrupt after they retire because they don’t have any options for a job since they didn’t finish their education. They don’t know how to provide for themselves or manage their money. If they got paid in college, they would stay longer and eventually get a degree so they have a backup plan. Over 75 percent of professional athletes playing football, basketball, and baseball go bankrupt within five years of retirement and this percentage is rising every year. We do not want this number to keep rising so college athletes need to be paid. There are some good reasons to feel differently about this topic. Even though a lot of athletes end up bankrupt, it is their fault. If they were smart with their money they would figure out a plan when they retire before they are even close to retirement.
There are a lot of people being affected by this debate. If people start informing people on why the athletes deserve to be paid, they could be getting paid in the future like they should. It is not very hard for people to go out of their way and just talk about the athletes that are being used to make money. As more people find out about this, it will make more people appreciate all of the hard work that college athletes put in. College athletics need to make changes in order to truly support the amount of effort and dedication athletes put in.