Why Should College Athletes Be Paid?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) claims to be a nonprofit organization. Athletes enter the NCAA to play out their dreams of furthering their high school sports career to the next level. They receive scholarships that cover all or most of their school tuition and other fees but end up wanting more for their dedication. They expect more because they are hardworking athletes. To keep high ranked players from attending other colleges, coaches and other college faculty pay players under the table. Additionally, it is well-known that the organization pays many of its players to bribe them into attending certain college campuses to play. Besides the fact that paying money out of the nonprofit corporation is obviously against the rules, other extra-curricular activities do not get this type of opportunity, and the money going to these players could be used
Yes, some of the money is rightfully awarded, but another large portion is secretly split and then paid to recruiting prospects. Doing so is a huge risk because less than two percent of college athletes become professionals, which means that cut of money could easily have paid another student’s way into school (Bennett). Other people’s dreams of going to a prestigious college are put on hold and crushed in order to take advantage of these greedy athletes. Plus, this is an extremely illegal trade because Donald Remy said, “The NCAA, in accordance with courts that have addressed the issue, believes that students athletes are not employees, under the law, and that they should not be treated like employees either by the law of by the schools they attend” (Cooper). College athletes are not professionals that get paid millions of dollars each year, so they should only be able to collect the same aids as other college activities such as band, art, and computer