The debate concerning actual monetary compensations to college athletes for their participation in diverse competitions, especially when it comes to football or baseball, did not start yesterday. Some note that every kind of effort and achievement should be rewarded accordingly, so college athletes should be paid. Others emphasize that these students receive generous scholarships that should be regarded as a reward for students’ sports input. Knoester and Ridpath identified certain changes in public opinion concerning the matter (1). The rate of people who believe that college athletes should be paid has been steadily increasing during the past decades. Irrespective of such shifts in people’s perspectives, I am absolutely sure that college athletes cannot be paid due for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, college athletes do receive a monetary reward for their skills and abilities in the form of a scholarship. They get an opportunity to gain higher education and become successful in their adult life without paying actual money. Instead, these young people are involved in amateur sports where they display high results. It is a fair exchange of knowledge and the future for excelling in a type of extracurricular activity. It is critical to remember that these people enter colleges to receive knowledge rather than be professional athletes.
Some may say that college athletes devote a lot of time to training in order to win and enhance their educational establishment’s prestige. Moreover, these people produce revenue, so it is natural that they have the right to get a part of the profit they make. Again, scholarships have become the instruments of fair compensation. Another argument is that college students are allowed to receive money for services they provide or products they create. At that, these students pay taxes, and they pay fees to receive educational services. So, the only fair option will be allowing college athletes to be paid but making them pay for academic and related services.
These arguments also raise questions related to legal and economic domains. Ehrlich emphasizes that legal issues are associated with the status of college students, taxes, the essence of wages, and many other aspects (58). Another important factor to consider when debating the need to develop legislation allowing college students to be paid is linked to American federalism. Meyer and Zimbalist, for instance, argue that the enactment of state laws can be challenging as they are likely to fail to comply with federal regulations (302). The development of national associations for college athletes and some viable federal acts is also unlikely.
To sum up, the introduction of additional payments to college athletes for their sports achievements is characterized by numerous obstacles. More importantly, such compensation is quite unfair and even illogical. Other students pay for everything and contribute to the enhancement of their college’s prestige by their academic achievement and becoming highly-valued employees or entrepreneurs. College athletes receive scholarships for their input in their educational establishments’ image, and some argue that they should be additionally paid for their effort. At that, college athletes are still amateurs who are engaged in extracurricular activities that facilitate but do not define their development. They study specific disciplines and try to become professionals in spheres other than sports in the vast majority of cases. Hence, college athletes should not be paid in order to retain the status of colleges as establishments where people get knowledge rather than earn money.
Works Cited
Ehrlich, Sam E. “But They’re Already Paid”: Payments In-Kind, College Athletes, and the FLSA.” West Virginia Law Review, vol. 123, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1-13.
Knoester, Chris, and B. David Ridpath. “Should College Athletes Be Allowed to Be Paid? A Public Opinion Analysis.” Sociology of Sport Journal, 2020, pp. 1-13.
Meyer, Jayma, and Andrew Zimbalist. “A Win Win: College Athletes Get Paid for Their Names, Images, and Likenesses and Colleges Maintain the Primacy of Academics.” Harvard Journal of Sports & Entertainment Law, vol. 11, no. 1, 2020, pp. 301-357.