College Athletes Salary

The debate over paying collegiate athletes a salary has been going on for several years now. College athletes are amateurs not professionals. By definition, an amateur is someone who does not make money for what they do (Ramachandran). Therefore, collegiate athletes should not be paid any form of a salary for playing a sport. They have never been paid in the past and there is no reason to start now. College athletes receive enough compensation for what they do through scholarships. Not to mention the controversies over salaries for individual players and different sports. Those who say that they should get paid argue that being a college athlete leaves little to no time for those students to work a part time job. They also say that the coaches are getting paid huge salaries so the athletes should too. Others believe that these athletes should be able to do endorsement deals and receive compensation for jerseys and other items with their name or number on it (Ramachandran). This would only take time away from what these athletes should be focusing on, which is their school work.

For those college athletes who believe they should be getting paid for what they do, they need to remember that they are not yet professionals. A lot of college football and basketball players especially, think that just because they are on TV they should be getting paid some form of a salary. These athletes should be happy with the opportunity they are being given. The opportunity to get better at their particular sport and get recognized by professional scouts. That is the whole point of playing these sports in college. For example, Kentucky’s star basketball player a few years ago Anthony Davis, was given a free education and a chance to audition for the NBA. That should be more than enough incentive. Not to mention that only a select few collegiate athletes ever end up making money for what they do. These athletes need to remember that the main reason they are going to college is to get an education, and playing a sport is just something extra. Like I stated above, collegiate athletes have never been paid before, and it simply makes no sense to start now. It will only diminish the value of education (Daugherty). Paying these student athletes would give them the idea that sports are higher than education and that should not be the case.

College athletes receive enough “payment” through their scholarships. A majority of them are on full ride scholarships or only have to pay a small amount to attend their school. Take Duke for example. It costs approximately fifty seven thousand dollars a year to attend this university. So a student athlete going to Duke is technically getting paid fifty seven thousand dollars a year. A lot of people don’t even make that in one year working a full time job (Daugherty). So why would these athletes need to get paid any more? Some would say, what about the student athletes who aren’t there on a full ride scholarship?