Why Do Student Athletes Get Paid?

Collegiate sports have turned into a billion dollar industry and are probably just as popular, if not more popular than professional sports. College athletes put their bodies on the line to play a sport they love, many with hopes and dreams to one day make it to the professional leagues. Athletic facilities are the major money makers for all universities. Colleges bring in billions of dollars in revenue annually, yet athletes do not get paid. Some fans believe athletes should not get paid due to their sports level being “amateurish.”; however, this is far from the truth. There is much more to being a college athlete than just practicing and playing games. These student-athletes must practice, weight lift, go to meetings, travel, go to tutoring and study groups, all the while maintaining sufficient grades. This is very tedious work and is very time consuming. College athletes have a high standard to live up to (Frederick Web; Huma Web; Patterson Web ).

In conclusion, it is a fact that athletes, especially at larger universities across the country get special treatment in regards to academic issues and lifestyle. Universities will go to any extent to protect their players from being academically ineligible to play, and seems they will do anything to get the best recruits in the country to give their team an advantage. It is hard for the NCAA to enforce strict rules, especially academically because schools have academic freedom which enables universities to make their own classroom policies. The NCAA asks, "If a certain institution permits grade changes for students up through and even after the final exam, how do you hold athletes to a different standard?" In reality, it is almost impossible to hold athletes to a different standard, and as long as this loop hole exists, colleges will be using any method enticing athletes to come to their school and continue to play through their college career, regardless of their academic status. It is unethical, but until NCAA rules change, who can dictate these procedures are not allowed?

Many student-athletes can have their whole career, their passion, and love of their respected sport taken away from them with just 1 play. The student-athletes are representing their respective school and making the school more popular and more students will want to enroll there and the student-athletes are making the NCAA millions of dollars, but the NCAA will not give the student-athletes just a little allowance because it will “ruin the integrity of college sports”. Student athletes-athletes should get paid because students could get hurt in one play, the NCAA makes millions of dollars on the the players, and it will make the players do smarter things with their money.

The “No Pass/No Play” requirement drastically affects the ability for low-income students to participate in extracurricular activities. According to an article in the Washington post in 1995, The correlation between the income of students and their GPA, SAT, or ACT score is strong. Using the current requirement, the NCAA may be restricting participation in extracurricular activities to income not scores. Also, in 1995, the USDOE’s National Center for Education Statistics found that Proposition 48 would cut off more than 1/3 of low-income students and 1/10 of high-income students (Klesse, 2005). Cutoff scores are controversial because a point or half a point difference in a score can determine pass or fail; however, the standardized assessment being used as the measuring stick may require a larger difference before mastery or lack of mastery can be indicated. For example, one additional question correct or incorrect on the SAT can result in a 10-point difference in a student’s score. However, a 120-point difference is needed in the score of a SAT student before a difference in ability can be qualified (Klesse, 2005). Opponents of the “No Pass / No Play” requirements argue that minority athletes will end up

Understanding the stringent rules employed by the N.C.A.A., the administrators of the university saw it fit to develop fake classes that student-athletes would attend and receive A 's and B 's. No one should fault the school alone because the pressure that some of these student-athletes undergo is enormous, and they find it hard to keep up with schoolwork. All universities have minimum academic requirements that they should adhere to when selecting freshmen students. Gurney posits the N.C.A.A. has specified the minimum academic requirements for universities selecting first-year student-athletes. Some of these requirements are followed, but since the high school test scores are low, the students find it difficult to cope with college academics.

“Hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard” As said by Tim Notke in this quote, not everyone has the motivation and dedication to be able to commit to a sport, keep up with school, and go to work. Student athletes, NCAA players are worth money should not get paid because tournaments that are held by the NCAA force students to miss class and the NCAA in basketball and football bring in money as a non-profit organization. Missing class at a college level puts the student in a very bad situation. If regular students are struggling with their classes when they miss, just imagine how much stress a student athlete undergoes when they miss a class. Also, most of the time that the student athlete is in a sport, it creates a lot more stress for them because they are putting in more than 40+ hours of training so that they are prepared for their competitions.

As a result, student-athletes have struggled to maintain their GPA. Furthermore, the graduation rates for power five conference universities (PAC 12, BIG 10, SEC, ACC, and BIG 12) are horrendous because of the lack of time allocated for academics. For example, in 2010, the average graduation rate for March Madness, the NCAA Basketball championship tournament, teams’ was 43%, an unacceptable rate. On the other hand, the increase in hours spent per week has caused student-athletes to identify more as athletes than students (Best college online). A direct effect of the universities admitting college athletes that are not ready is students cannot complete basic general education classes. According to Mary Willingham, a learning specialist at the University of North Carolina, there were basketball players at the University of North Carolina who were illiterate. All in all, the shift of student-athletes to solely athletes is unacceptable, however, can be solved by the following: have an agency within the NCAA to keep universities accountable for rule violations that disrupt the learning of athletes, use revenue generated from the student-athletes to provide academic support to ensure learning, and/or have a third party agency keep universities accountable for rule violations.

Student athletes in extracurricular activities should not receive participation trophies. This is because the system would be incredibly redundant and an embarrassing display. Firstly, it creates a sense of false motivation that leads to entitlement. However, the trophies could not motivate the athlete to go above and beyond the next time around. Lastly, these "trophies" would reward those that did not try as hard as those that put more work and effort into the sport.

In today’s society there is an ongoing debate if college athletics play a valuable role in higher education. First, when and where did college athletics start? Historians trace the origins of college athletics to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire when Harvard and Yale had a boat race in 1852. This evidence suggests that schools have been competing for over 160 years which means they need to have rules in place to keep order. The NCAA does have rules in place for athletes. Some rules include scoring a 1010 in the SAT or a combined score of 86 on the ACT along with maintaining a GPA of 2.0. This shows that the NCAA has rules so an athlete must do school work to keep their grades up but, what does the NCAA do to enforce their rules.The NCAA

It is the ethical duty of a university to recruit student athletes not only to succeed in sports but to also provide a college education that will make them successful after graduation. Creighton University failed in fulfilling this duty by recruiting and admitting a student athlete that scored in the bottom fifth percentile of college – bound seniors who took the ACT. Kevin Ross filed suit against Creighton University for negligence and breach of contract for their failure to properly educate him. After reading Ross’ case, I question what is the definition of a student – athlete in the NCAA. Ross was admitted to Creighton in spite of being far below the level of an average Creighton student. Once his four years were up, he had the overall language skills of a fourth grader. What happened to the college education that was owed to Ross? Creighton had every intention of recruiting a

Athletics are one of the largest sources of revenue for a college, but tends to come at the cost of student's education. Athletes are preparing to compete at the collegiate level well before time has come to even consider a college. Some high schools have instituted grade point average, GPA, requirements for student participation in athletics. Installing the requirement motivates students to work harder in school. This is positive because it allows for an increase in the athletes' knowledge an opportunity to be successful in both academics and athletics in college.

Out of all the high school student athletes, only 6% pursue their dream to play on the college level (National Collegiate Athletic Association). Athletes have the potential to play at a high level but do not make it because they struggle academically. Also, the academic requirements for each division are different which allows students to enroll in a school, but at a lower rank. Meeting all of the requirements and criteria of academic eligibility during high school is extremely important because if not met, playing or participating in sports in college will be difficult. High schools and colleges require that their students meet certain academic criteria in order to participate in extracurricular activities.

College sport programs are beginning to have more of a negative effect on education for numerous reasons. Some of those reasons are that athletes are not able to participate in games due to ineligibility, other people are doing the athletes homework, and athletes do not study or do their homework do to games being on the same day or the following day. Now every student-athlete has to meet the requirements of passing all of their classes to be able to participate in their sporting events. The required grade point average (GPA) that a college student-athlete has to maintain is a 2.3. As a former student-athlete, I know the struggles of trying to keep your grades up to par and to be completely honest, I found it is very easy to keep my grades at the eligibility requirements during high school. Even in college it is not the hardest of thing to keep your GPA at the passing requirement because the athletes are able to use tutors whenever they need the help. However, even the most gifted of athletes may not be the

When kids or students play a sport most of them pay more attention on the sport. Now with the starting in most schools the rule is “You can play sports if you have a C average of higher.”

According to a study at the University of Kansas, students in grades 9-12 were surveyed, more than 97% of student athletes were able to graduate high school, 10% higher than students that never participated in sports (Maslen 1). Student who have the support from teammates and role models were more likely to graduate high school. Additionally, student athletes have an average gpa of 3.11, this is higher than those who have not participated in sports (161 e21 textbook). Yet, students are forced to stop playing sports because of 1 failing grade even though they might a higher gpa than many non student athletes. It seems ridiculous that athletes need to keep all passing grades to participate in school sports. Many people might ask, Why should we