Why College Athletes Should Be Allowed to Be Paid:

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Professor Bustamante
ENC 1102 T/T
Paper #4
23 October 2012
Why College Athletes Should Be allowed to be Paid:
College athletes should be allowed to be paid to play for many reasons, but today’s college athletes are subject to the “pay for play” rule, which states ‘that an individual will lose his or her amateur status and will not be eligible for intercollegiate competition in any sport’’ (Steve Wieberg). However, ultimately the rule hurts student athletes because many college students need help simply surviving financially if student athletes are allowed to receive money from fans, they could do positive stuff such as pay bills, buy food, wash clothes, get gas for their cars, and buy toiletries. Many universities depend on their student athletes to produce and maintain the popularity of their school's name. Although scholarships are also given for academic achievement, these students do not do the additional work college athletes are required to do. Also, college athletes, unlike those students with academic scholarships, are a huge source of revenue for their school and attract students to their institutions. This helps the university grow popularity because these are considered the best athletes in the country at the D1 level.

Most college athletes that play a sport in college accept a scholarship as their form of pay to play that sport at the school just as an average student with a 4.0 grade point average. That is perfectly fine that the student athletes received the scholarship to come to the school and play for them, and the regular student that received their scholarship just to attend to get a education because of what they did in high school, but is the scholarship enough for the athletes to survive or should they be allowed to be paid? No, the scholarship is not enough for them to survive. Student athletes should be allowed to be paid by the university and by the fans. According to an ESPN article “College Athletes Deserve to Be Paid,” ‘’by the time Christmas break comes, most athletes are in debt with the university officials’’ (Wilbon, Michael). A lot of colleges are not giving the athletes a full ride scholarship to play the sport for them. Instead, they are giving them a partial scholarship, meaning they will only pay for half of the college athlete’s tuition and college expenses, even though they are going to be making millions off of the college athletes. The rule “play for pay” should be revoked (Ellen J. Staurowsky). With the rule “play for pay,” if a student athlete violates the rule, they will be suspended from the team. The student athlete may also be kicked out of the school, and cost the school many problems such as fines, revoked games and banners, and even require the firing of the team’s coach. College athletes should not have to break the pay for play rule just to survive or even have fun. The NCAA and the college athlete’s university should not try and be so greedy and keep all the money and claim that the money pays for the athletes uniforms, food, travel, hotel stay, and pays for the student athletes scholarships. For example, I calculated if an instate student athlete gets a full ride scholarship to Florida State University that the total cost for room and board, meal plan, books, tuition and fees, and other expense would total out to be $19,187 for their attendance, but for a student athlete from out of state, the total cost for them to attend would be $34,354. Let’s say all fifth teen men on FSU men’s basketball roster get a basketball scholarship, and six out fifth teen are considered in state tuition and nine out fifth teen are considered out of state tuition. The total cost of all the scholarships added together would total to be $1,345,284.00. But according to a National College Athletes' Advocacy Group and a sports management professor, calculated in the report that if college sports shared their revenues the way pro sports do, the average basketball...
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