College Athletes Are Not Paid

College Athletes are not paid for the services they render to their schools: helping their colleges and universities earn scores of dollars each year. Although most college athletes are receiving scholarships, many are not. Some college sports scholarships cover some of the student's tuition expenses but the athlete is left to fend for himself or herself with regards to living expenses, cost of books, and any remaining tuition not covered by the scholarship. Because athletes at the highest caliber of their sport work extra hard, putting in many hours of practice and play time in addition to the work they spend on coursework, few have the time or the opportunity to find a paying job. A paying job would detract from their athletic careers, possibly destroying their potential to become a professional athlete. Because college athletes work hard, and because their hard work earns their school enormous amounts of revenues, their scholarship money should be supplemented with a pay check.

As Whiteside points out, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) earns half a billion dollars each year in revenues not including payouts from the football bowls, which are enormously popular with American audiences. Some coaches, notes Whiteside, earn salaries in the millions. Moreover, the students who play collegiate sports are woefully exploited when their names are placed on jerseys without ever seeing a penny of the revenue payouts from their sales. Any corporate sponsorship of college sports or its players is funneled directly into the schools and the businesses that support their athletic departments -- and not to the students. Yet the NCAA expressly prohibits colleges and universities from paying their students anything beyond the official scholarship finds they provide (Meshefejian). College athletes deserve to reap more of the benefits their athletic contributions are bringing to their schools.

Some critics point out that only some sports like basketball and football earn the sky-high revenues for the NCAA, and if football players receive a paycheck then it hurts the volleyball and tennis players at those schools (Korman). All athletes devote considerable time and energy into their sports and it would be unfair to single out only those athletes whose sports are high-profile and popular with television audiences as those worthy of an extra paycheck.

However, the United States is not a socialist society. Individuals get paid for the work they do and some jobs simply pay more than others. A lawyer is always going to make more than a manager at McDonalds even though both likely work equally as hard for their families. Working hard does not always equal increased pay. College football and basketball are simply the most revenue-generating sports sponsored by the NCAA and those will inevitably be the ones with departments that can offer their student-athletes paychecks to supplement or substitute for their scholarships. Furthermore, if the football or basketball departments can afford to pay coaches the high salaries they deserve then the students also deserve to see some of the money that the school is generating for itself from the sweat of its students.