Why Should Student Athletes Be Paid?

Student athletes are constantly given rules and regulations that they must follow to be college eligible. One of those regulations is a required education GPA based on the schools division and student body. There are many schools that have allegedly ignored this regulation and allowed athletes that did not meet the requirements to play at the college level. Preferential treatment among student athletes is a major problem for the NCAA.
Universities set standards that all students must follow. So when these standards are not followed it devalues the degree that the students are receiving. The degree would look less valuable if you have fake classes or you have an academic department that is changing academic matters and record. This is a problem
because athletes are students of the university and should have the same rules as other students (“Academic Foul: Some Colleges Accused Of Helping Athletes Cheat”).
All around the united states in all divisions and schools students are receiving special treatment during the admission process. Some of the student athletes that do not meet the educational requirements may receive admission through a program that allows students to play college sports but not have the academics to be eligible. More than half of those who are admitted have lower test scores and GPAs as to other students. The people that are in charge of admissions often say that the only reason athletes receive special admission is because they are strong students. 1991 survey showed that men's basketball and football players were six times more likely to receive a “special admission.” San Diego State has 248 students that were considered “special admits.” 105 of those students were athletes that were intentionally admitted (Phillips 759).
Colleges allow special admits for the money they can receive.
Sports programs create income for the university, so the way to have a better sports program is to have competitive athletes and compete in championships. Some of the best athletes are not academically inclined, so schools accept them as special admits because of how they perform athletically. Athletes receive most of the scholarships due to the income that they may bring to the school if they create a competitive team. The money does not go towards the academic part of the school, but instead it is used for the sports program to grow and become more competitive. This isn’t fair to the students that are not athletes but are very academically inclined. The “fairness” factor is affected by finances. This may happen not because of intention but just how the economy works. In the whole United States sports and entertainment have lots of funding so this may be why it is happening at lower level sports (“Is the Special Treatment of Athletes at College Fair?”).
Some students are considered “disadvantage” and most of them are the minority. Allan Bakke was rejected from a school on two occasions even though he had a higher GPA, benchmark score, and a higher medical entrance exam score than the specially admitted “disadvantage” students. When a student was not accepted into law school due to his race many people began to point out and discourage the special admission process (Phillips
772).
Coaches are involved in some cases. They claim that they did not directly tell advisors to allow a student to be eligible but, they did say “ get this young man or woman eligible” in some cases. There are other people that are affecting athletes as well. Agents, amatuer coaches, or financial planners have been known to change a student's grades by helping them. Or they may help them in exchange for working for the person in the future (Wolverton).

The NCAA is attempting to stop colleges from “cheating” in athletic games.
The NCAA has academic allegations against 20 schools. This has caused many schools to increase observation on their athletes academics. The NCAA has found many violations at UNC,wherein they have allegedly allowed university employees to do the students work or helping them out. A former basketball coach sold test answers to athletes around the country. Cases of alleged academic misconduct have arose concerning former members of the Texas Longhorns men's basketball team. One player allegedly took photos of questions on the final exam and sent them to someone who was not in that class to find the answers. Another incident at Texas was when their academic mentor admitted to helping an athlete finish a paper “that wasn’t really entirely his own. Another college was Syracuse University who was accused of academic fraud by the NCAA (“Academic Foul…”). Indiana University allows special admits as long as they could potentially graduate, even if they do not meet the school’s requirements. Former Indiana coach,Gerry DiNardo, had forty-two percent of the students did not meet requirements of the University. Thirty-one of fifty-five colleges admitted to allowing special admits into their colleges’(“Is the Special Treatment...”). According to Brad Wolverton, Weber State University is now on probation for 3 years and a reduction of their football scholarships after the Division l Committee found that a
mathematics professor obtained access to players’ online class accounts and completed their quizzes and tests. Jack Bauler, another college coach, was suspended after asking a professor to register one of his players for the fall semester after the semester had ended.
There is no set rule that states how far below academic standards athletes can be to still play college sports (“Is the Special Treatment…”). The NCAA is encouraging colleges to develop a standard for special admission of scholar athletes. There are many schools that have developed these standards,but they contain mistakes or flaws (Phillips 768). "The timing is right to dedicate more resources to this," Ms. Sulentic said. "Everyone's antenna is up about academic fraud on a college campus in general." Investigators from the NCAA have began to train on how to identify academic fraud and how to handle potential violations. Ms. Sulentic wants to help enforce officials understand the violation and how to handle the situations that they may encounter.
Student athletes become confident and think that they will become “superstars”. Some schools tell their athletes that they want what is best for them and if they try hard enough they could make the pros. But in reality they may not make it professionally playing sports. There are some athletes that truly believe that they are professional material and they have no backup plan if that dream fails. This causes them to worry about what they will do now that they have no income and they are too old to play college sports anymore. This would be a big deal if the student would have known that they should have a strong academic background to “fall back on” when their professional dreams come up short (Nelson).
There are some things that are not necessarily helpful to the athletes.,Sometimes they are exploited for their natural abilities. They may get pampered or sheltered, which causes them to become dependent on others which in turn makes them less mature and responsible. When athletes realize their dreams of playing professionally are out of the picture, they don't know what to attempt. They may have not matured emotionally because they have been sheltered and if they were injured they have medical bills that they may not be able to play.Colleges can prevent this from happening by telling the students that they are not guaranteed to become professional athletes (Nelson).
There are many cases of academic misconduct in the most recent years. And the NCAA has began efforts to stop these violations across the country. There have been many schools that have been caught not following these rules. The athletes do not think that what they are doing is wrong because they have seen so many others do it. But with the increase of these violations athletes are not gaining a good education and are being long-term harmed by the decisions that they make in college. They are not becoming adults and they may not have a job which would not allow them to raise a family if they had one or pay medical bills from existing injuries in the college sport they participated in. There are some things that student believe will help them become professionals but in reality they have a very slight chance of actually becoming a professional sports player. These special admissions have harmed the athletes, the other students in the college, and the college itself. So it has become imperative that the NCAA does all things possible to prevent these violations in the future or to limit the lack of observation by the association.