The Pros And Cons Of Paying College Athletes

The popularity of college athletics has increased among Americans over the recent years. Therefore, universities are gaining mass amounts of profit from their schools’ athletic programs. Student athletes who are involved in these programs are not seeing a reasonable return for the hard work and dedication they put in to make their universities great. In some regards, sports have become the foundation for many universities. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a non-profit organization that sees their athletes as amateurs and not professionals. A non-athlete at a university has more free time to pick up a job that will help them make money for their needs. Whereas an athlete will need the time away from the classroom to …show more content…
Paying a-student athlete may help keep kids in school for more than one or two years. Athletes want to make money as soon as they can and will sign a pro contract sooner than later with the fear that they could get injured during their college careers. Unlike in the pros, college athletes do not have full injury coverage. These athletes have to find ways to cover the medical bills and in some regards worry about losing their scholarship. When an athlete gets injured, they are subject to losing their scholarship, this causes students to drop out. These athletes cannot afford to attend school without their scholarship, kids are getting punished for dedicating themselves to a sport and when they get injured lose all aid in helping them attain a degree. By giving athlete’s compensation for the enormous amount of revenue they bring to the school, can help overall graduation rates because the players will not fear the risk of going into debt or not having the resources to make it through college. However, athletes are given scholarships that cover their tuition and room and board, it does not cover the fact that there is a vast amount of college athletes that still cannot afford to bring their family members up to the university to watch a game. Athletes do not have enough time to work a job, play their sport, and maintain a good …show more content…
These athletes are not being able to use their abilities to earn money and help them with expenses. College athletes are making the NCAA billions of dollars a year and are not getting rewarded for it because they are amateurs. If the athletes are so-called amateurs, than why do people continue to pay thousands of dollars to come watch the athletes compete? The NCAA claims the athletes are in college for the main purpose of academics, but athletes are missing class for games and tournaments weekly. Student athletes put valuable time and effort into their sport so that they can help provide profit and help promote universities. For whatever reason, these athletes get little to nothing in