Should College Athletes Be Paid?

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There is currently a major issue in today’s college athletics. Universities and the NCAA make billions of dollars while some student-athletes go hungry. There is a huge debate over whether or not student-athletes should be paid as employees of their respective colleges. Personally, I don’t believe players should receive full-time salaries, but Universities and the NCAA should be required to increase the value of the scholarships that they award to student-athletes. By requiring that colleges provide athletes with an additional $2,000 per semester as part of their scholarship you can greatly increase the well-being (welfare) of the students.
Some people argue about the poor financial situation some colleges are in and their ability to afford to pay student athletes this additional money. This does not make sense, though because Universities make tons of money off of their tuition and overpriced room and board. Also, the NCAA could be asked to chip in to pay for these additional scholarships considering that the NCAA, a non-profit organization, makes six billion dollars annually (Frederick 2013).
Attempting to pay student-athletes as full-time employees would be almost impossible to pull off and difficult to do fairly. If athletes were treated as employees of their respective university or college the issues professional sports have would enter into the college game. Students could potentially strike and also schools with more funding could simply offer to pay athletes more than other schools could. Subsequently turning collegiate sports into smaller versions of their counterparts, money hungry professional sports, which is something I do not think anyone desires. Many people enjoy college athletics for the sole reason that the athl...

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Federick, B. (2013, April 1). Should NCAA Athletes Be Paid?. US News. Retrieved May 10, 2014, from http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/should-ncaa-athletes-be-paid
Hartnett, T. (2013, October 21). Why College Athletes Should be Paid. The Huffington Post. Retrieved April 26, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tyson-hartnett/college-athletes-should-be-paid_b_4133847.html
Phillips, S. (2014, April 7). Shabazz Napier: ‘there are hungry nights that I go to bed and I'm starving'. . Retrieved May 10, 2014, from http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/04/07/shabazz-napier-there-are-hungry-nights-that-i-go-to-bed-and-im-starving/
Wieberg, S. (2011, January 15). NCAA survey delves into practice time, coaches' trust. USATODAY.com. Retrieved May 10, 2014, from http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/college/2011-01-14-ncaa-survey_N.htm

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