Should college athletes be paid? Let’s take a quick glance at the pros and cons of each perspective. For starters, in my opinion, yes, college athletes should get paid. What deserves debate, is the conversation of how to get this done. From my experience, in America, you get paid in proportion to the value you bring to the marketplace. College sports is one, if not the only, place where this isn’t the case. it’s only a matter of time before players start getting more than “a free education.”
There are plenty of cons that come with paying students to play sports. According to Title IX, a federally-mandated law, if conferences and schools decide to increase the value of student-athlete scholarships to cover living expenses, they have to do it for women’s programs as well. This means that schools would have to, for example, increase the value of womens volleyball and softball scholarships as well. Schools have to stay in-accordance with Title IX, otherwise they’re risking their federal funding. And you know they’re not trying to lose out on any money. Another argument as to why schools should not allow student athletes to get paid is the fact that small schools would be at a disadvantage. How would the smaller schools and conferences afford this? The bigger conferences make way more money than the smaller conferences through their huge tv deals. So unless the Big Ten’s, and SEC’s of the world agree to donate revenue to conferences that make afraction of what they make, (think MAC and Mountain West conferences), wouldn’t this create an even wider gap recruiting-wise between the powerhouse