Recent debate has arisen about whether or not student-athletes should be paid for their participation in college sports amidst the unionizing efforts of football players at Northwestern University and the momentum added by March Madness. University of Connecticut guard Shabazz Napier, the 2014 NCAA Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player and first-team consensus All-American, told reporters that he often goes to bed “starving” due to his inability to afford food, sparking a national controversy to which the NCAA responded by rewarding its athletes with unlimited meals. “Sometimes money is needed,” Napier continues, describing himself as deserving of payment as an employee of the NCAA.
Sure, college athletes are hardworking and talented individuals whose unparalleled work ethic and drive make them admirable and glorified people in the eyes of the populous. The NCAA makes big bucks off of their contributions on the field and on the court, and their efforts should be recognized and remunerated. But they should never be allowed to earn a salary. Student-athletes already receive more than enough compensation as it stands. Rewarded with full scholarships, which entail a place to sleep, access to education, costs of textbooks, medical consultation, and now unlimited meals, they are not the typical college student dealing with student loan debt and struggling to make ends meet. These scholarships amount to a hefty price around $15,000 a year per player, meaning an athlete who is able to retain his scholarship all four years of eligibility (which is highly likely) would have received about $60,000 worth of compensation free of charge. It would not be a wise financial decision for the NCAA to pay these athletes who already receive considerably meaningful reimbursement. What more could they want?
The act of paying student-athletes severely undermines the whole purpose of a college education. The simple fact is that, if students are allowed to receive monetary benefits for playing a sport, college becomes more like a job and less like an institution devoted to setting up the individual for success through higher-level education. More and more prospective NCAA athletes will not receive degrees, as their “hiring” will convince them that the need for education is no longer necessary. Couple that with the fact that many student athletes already fail to graduate or receive degrees- UConn graduates 8 percent of its players- and you’ve got a troubling decrease in graduation rates, with the NCAA potentially morphing into an NFL or NBA-type professional sports league.
Similarly, the payment of college athletes could potentially result in the termination of recruitment and an even bigger gap between the talent levels of teams representing smaller, lower-division schools and those representing large, storied universities. College recruitment will vanish once the NCAA incorporates a uniform salary for each of its players; two or three dominant super-conferences featuring big-name schools like those in the SEC or Big 12 will supplant smaller market schools who won’t have the funding or enticing qualities to lure potential athletes to their programs. Simply put, seeing as they have enough of a hard time keeping pace with Division I programs as it is, they will no longer be able to compete with them in the future, as these large schools will always offer much more than they ever could. This could prove detrimental to the future of college sports, as competition will be severely reduced and programs will inevitably disappear entirely.
Two major questions arise when considering the payment of college athletes: “Where will this money come from?” and “How can you determine which athletes get paid?” Assuming all college athletes, no matter the gender, sport, or level of competition earn wages for their athletic contributions (anything less would be unfair and hypocritical), universities are going to have a tough time finding enough revenue to dole out each athlete’s fair share. Tuition for non-athletes will surely skyrocket, creating an unstable financial foundation on which these athletic programs will be based. Additionally, the labeling of college athletes as ‘employees’ could result in a slippery slope of the payment of high school, middle school, or maybe even elementary school athletes for their involvement in their school’s sports programs and/or the payment of all persons attending college for their everyday contributions. Why should athletes be the exception?
Lastly, if the athlete is truly skilled enough to merit a salary, he will go on to continue his career in professional leagues where he will be paid a ridiculously large sum of money. He can leave school early and enter the draft as an underclassman if he pleases in order to fulfill his need to receive monetary compensation. College sports are considered amateur sports for a reason- they provide the expert coaching and training that athletes can build upon in their professional careers. As for the other non-top-tier student athletes, they will have received more than they bargained for at the end of their college careers when they find that all of their expenses have been taken care of and they now have the necessary education to pursue other academic goals or to make a living in today’s world.
What kind of example would this be setting for today’s youth? The value of a solid education plummets substantially if everyone wants to join the football team. Imagine the disputes over salary, signing bonuses, contracts, the correlation between performance level and payment. Do we really want to make college sports a complicated system of legal obligations and restrictions? Do we want to instill in our children the mindset that education and classroom diligence aren’t indispensable to relative success in life?
Students are NOT and never will be professional athletes, period. For many college attendees, sports are the only means necessary through which they can embark on the path to a higher education and a bright future. They made a choice to participate in intercollegiate athletics as an inclusion in part of their overall college experience. Practically everything they could ever hope for as a student is already paid for, and they think in addition they should be paid as well? I don’t think so.
