Over the duration of the semester, I have looked deeply into why student athlete’s should be paid.  To answer this question, I looked at things like: does a scholarship count as being paid? Why are athletes currently not paid? What can be done in order to change this? How can the NCAA effectively make these changes? What are the pros to paying student-athletes? What are the cons to paying student-athletes?  After having finished my research, I have come to my conclusion.

Student-athletes invest as much time into school, if not more into the sport they play while attending a college or university as a student-athlete.  Not only this, but as they balance the workload, with practice, workouts, and competition, they also have to complete the schoolwork of a full-time student.  As a student-athlete you are held to a high standard by your coaches, teammates, athletic director but mostly by yourself.  You want to be the best you can be in your respective sport and in the classroom.  When schools profit the money that these student-athletes pour their blood, sweat and tears into but have nothing to show for it, words can’t explain the frustration that is left.  An example of this frustration is this, a student is having a career year in points during basketball season.  This prospective athlete could go #1 in the NBA draft but in the last game of their season, they tear their ACL.  They postpone their eligibility, to struggle through the next three years of school, barely playing on the current roster and now if they don’t pass all of their classes, there is nothing left for them.  This was a student who could have had upwards of $24,000,000.

Although it isn’t always the case, where student-athletes will go pro, it happens that the schools make an exponential amount of profit off of that sport.  Well after my research, student-athletes deserve to be included in those earnings.  For so long, the NCAA has profited off of these athletes but now it is time to make things fair to those athletes that make the NCAA those profits.