Paying College Athletes

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Some college athletes are exceptional at what they do but read like fifth graders. In fact, data shared by Virginia Tech says that the average score on the Verbal SAT by athletes was a 524. This is lower than average and is not a good sign for the future of our society. Paying college athletes is a problem because there are so many parts to take into account. For example, who is going to pay them? How many athletes will get paid? Where is the money going to come from? In addition, college athletes will be affected greatly by this because their future could possibly be ruined; if they don’t make it to the professional leagues then they won’t have a backup to help them be victorious in life. This problem has been brought up numerous times throughout …show more content…

According to the Chicago Tribune, “Of the 70,000 students who will play college football, fewer than 2 percent will be drafted into the NFL…” (Delany and Williams). Think about it since not many players go big, it doesn’t make sense to pay them. Most college athletes do not have the skills to make it to whatever professional league they want to play in, therefore, should not be paid. College athletes are students, not employees or professional athletes. In another article by the Denver Post, it states, “...about 98 percent of the college students who play football or basketball will go pro in something other than sports.” (Thompson and Burnett). Since so many athletes prosper in something else, they could focus more on that talent rather than focusing on something that they have no chance of doing for a living. If they are paid, they will not focus on their other talents causing them to miss out on other opportunities. This is a similar idea to college athletes being paid because if they can’t get to the professional leagues they shouldn’t get paid; they just don’t deserve it because the money could go to something else worth paying or fighting for. While some may believe that college athletes work just as hard as professional athletes, they are still students and need to earn the money instead of just receiving it. As shown, college athletes …show more content…

In an article written by the New York Times, it stated that “Male recruited athletes, however, generally have lower GPAs than their non-athlete counterparts on average.” (Rampell). If an athletes GPA keeps dropping: they will not have a bright future, they will not be successful in life, and they will not have a chance to prove themselves to the world because they did not focus enough on their education to have a backup job. As this data has shown, athletes grades and GPAs are already low enough, and paying them would just encourage them to focus more on sports which would cause their grades to drop even lower. An article written by Zócalo Public Square said that “UNC offered a “no show” class for student-athletes (where students received grades for phantom classes that they didn’t attend), and Syracuse allowed academically ineligible athletes to compete.” (Zócalo Public Square). Due to the amount of attention college athletes put towards sports, they start to focus less on their education which leads to them thinking that they can get away with scandals like this in life. This is a problem because if they don’t make it professionally then they’ll be crushed since they do not have an alternate job in order to make money. Athletes will not be able to be prosperous in life and won’t be happy because they won’t be doing anything that they are passionate about. Some may think that college

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