Recently some universities have had to deal with student athletes who feel as though they deserve more than just recognition for playing well. A few athletes across the country, located at many different universities feel as though they should be receiving monetary benefits for performing well on the field or in the arena. Some student athletes have even gone far enough to say that student athletes should be paid minimum wage, just like those in work study programs, because without them the students in these programs would not have jobs. Although some athletes believe they should be paid for their performances, universities are already paying athletes hundreds of thousands of dollars through scholarships, merchandise, and training. To put it simply, a university paying its student athletes is just not practical. Doing so may raise the price of tuition for all students, or the price of athletic events. While the athletes may be benefiting from a nice paycheck, the university and the students who do not participate in NCAA athletics may be the ones punished just because athletes think they should be rewarded for how they play. The debate over whether or not student athletes should be paid is one that will probably continue until there is a clear cut solution to the problem, and in order to come to an agreement, both sides must benefit from the payment of athletes. Athletes will obviously benefit from being paid, but there has to be a reward for universities as well, such as good publicity and sponsorships from major companies. Universities themselves should not pay student athletes for their individual and team performances because of the potential negative effects, like tension between teams, tension with regular students, and recruitment problems, but to make both sides happy universities should help student athletes prepare for the future, by teaching them how to handle money in a financial literacy class.

       One potential negative impact that the payment of student athletes in college may lead to is the unequal pay of among the different sports. It is a well known fact across most of the country, that only a few Division I sports actually make a profit. For the most part, football and basketball are the only two sports that gain major attention from the country. On Saturdays in the fall, people are attached to their couches, watching game after game, and in March, millions of people across the country fill out brackets hoping they picked the correct basketball team to win it all. But what about all of the other sports that universities have to offer? They certainly do not receive the same air time on television as basketball and football do and not nearly as many people attend their games. For example, at the University of South Carolina almost 80,000 people pack into Williams-Brice Stadium on any given Saturday to watch the football team play. Compare that to the number of people who attend a men's soccer game at the University of South Carolina and one will find a very large discrepancy in attendance numbers. When paying athletes doesn't one think that the football team will believe they should earn more money than the soccer team because more people go to their games? Scoop Jackson, a writer for ESPN, put it best when he said, "Yet the beauty of the debate is once again lost because the foundation of the argument sits on a fault line. There is no system of payment that can be put in place that is fair across the board to all students, all sports and all schools that participate in college athletics" (Jackson). Simply put, there is no way to pay student athletes without upsetting anyone. One team will think they are being underpaid, while another will believe that they should be paid more. There is no way that a university can pay every single one of its athletes, and make them all believe they are earning the right amount of money. To avoid the drama there is a simple solution, do not pay student athletes.

Not only will paying student-athletes lead to unequal pay among teams, it may also result in legal problems between male and female athletes. This issue is becoming a more prevalent issue in professional sports, particularly soccer. Recently, players from the United States' Women's National Team have filed reports to the U.S. Soccer Federation claiming that they are unfairly paid. Although the women's team has found much more success than the men's team, they are making substantially less than their male counterparts. Jeffrey Kessler, the lawyer for the female players, says, "Women soccer players are making between 40 and 72 percent of what the male players are making. This is worse than the overall nationwide gap " (Peck). If women in professional sports are being unfairly paid, one can only imagine what female college athletes will have to deal with. The women's soccer team is much more successful than the men's team, so if a successful women's team is paid much less, an unsuccessful women's team would certainly be in much worse shape. The only solution to this problem is equal pay for both men and women's collegiate athletic teams, or no payment at all. Football and basketball, the two main sports shown on television are male sports. Paying the male athletes, but leaving out females will certainly create problems for universities across the country. As of right now, there is nothing in place that will help universities find a fair way to pay their student athletes (Jackson). In a debate television in CNN, Christine Brennan brought up Title IX in her argument for why student athletes should not be paid. Title IX is a law that, "prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity" ("Overview of Title IX of the Education"). Similar to Scoop Jackson's argument, Brennan argues that if male football and basketball players are going to be paid, then the females need to be paid too (Crossfire: Should College Athletes). Because of Title IX, there needs to be equal payment for male and female athletes, and this could pose a problem for universities since female sports generally do not create as much revenue as the male sports do. Most universities will have a problem paying every single one of their athletes because very few athletic programs around the country actually make a profit. According to an NCAA report, only 14 programs around the United States make a profit on sports without having to ask the university for further support (Dosh). It is clear from NCAA reports and studies done on student athletes that the reward is not worth the risk. It may lead to gender inequality, and financial problems for universities across the United States.

While looking at this argument, the opinion of the public must be taken into account. The public is comprised of the people who are paying these universities and paying for tickets to games. Their opinion is one that matters because of how much money they invest into universities and their sport programs. Based on a survey given out to the public in 2013, a majority of the general tax-paying population believe that student athletes should not be paid (Mondello).  Similar to the United States' government, universities should take the opinions of the people into serious consideration when making serious decision, especially ones that involve money. In this case, the public has seemed to have spoken when filling out the survey. If the people do not want the athletes to be paid, then they should not be paid, because they are the ones paying taxes and tuition that would then be turned into a paycheck for student athletes. To solidify these results, the survey should be given out again, and if the result is the same as the 2013 survey, then it is pretty clear what the public's opinion is on this topic. In the United States, the public gave their opinion on this topic in 2013 with a majority of the 420 people interviewed being against the payment of athletes (Mondello). If they want to keep America's general population content, universities should not pay student athletes. 

In recent years, student athletes around the country have been yearning and protesting to be paid for stepping on the field and representing a particular school while playing the sport they love. What these athletes fail to realize is that they are already being paid for participating in these sporting events. They are being paid in the form of scholarships and athletic gear. Most college athletes do not have to pay for tuition, or room and board, something that many regular students have difficulty paying for. The student athletes at Northwestern University recently demanded to be treated like a union, wanting the benefits that employees would normally receive. In 2015 the National Labor Relations Board made a decision regarding this concept and said that the athletes are to be recognized as employees, but they are already compensated through scholarships. Room and board, meal plans, and books are already paid for by the employer, otherwise known as the university ("Scholarship Student-Athletes are 'Employees'"). This ruling has a significant impact on this ongoing debate because it allows student athletes and universities to realize that the athletes are employees, but there is no reason to pay them further. The National Labor Relations Board made it clear that the athletes at Northwestern University are not to be paid, and universities should take this ruling and apply it to their student athletes as well. For the most part, athletes do not have to pay a dime to attend a university while regular students are drowning in debt after four years of undergraduate education. There is no reason to monetarily compensate student athletes when they are already being paid with scholarships, because these athletes will not graduate with debt due to these scholarships.

Paying student athletes can also lead to tension between the students who participate in Division I sports, and students who do not play sports while attending a university. Most athletes receive scholarships when they sign the National Letter of Intent, and these scholarships usually include the price of tuition, room and board, meal plans, and some athletic apparel. Basically, everything about a university is free for a student athlete. On the contrary, everything about a university is not free for a non student athlete. Because universities are so expensive in this day and age, many regular students have a hard time paying for all of the costs of attending an institution of higher learning. Many students need to fill out FAFSA forms, and file for student loans just to receive an undergraduate education. If universities begin to pay student athletes, then the athletes will not only be receiving a free education, but some athletes will be making a profit for playing the sport. This may become a problem for regular students, because they will watch as the student athletes strive financially, and they will be struggling to pay back their loans. In order for the regular students to feel somewhat equal to the student athletes, the athletes must not be paid for playing a sport. Doing so will allow the playing field between the two types of students to remain somewhat even. Although the student athletes work hard on the field everyday, they should not be paid for it, because they are rewarded in the form of scholarships. In order to keep the relationship between athletes and regular students healthy, universities should not be handing out paychecks to their athletes. Not paying the athletes will lead to a healthier relationship in the future, and if the player makes it to a professional league, the university may end up receiving donations from the former athlete and publicity that will help the university improve and gain national attention.

Finally, student athletes should not receive payment for playing a sport at whatever university they decide to attend, because college is a place where athletes go to learn, not to make money. Paying athletes will make them think that school is a job because they will believe college is where they go to play a sport and make money, which is what professional athletes do, not college athletes. For regular students, college is a place where one can earn a degree that will benefit them in the future. College is a place people go to learn so that they can gain the experience needed to form a career for themselves. The same can be said about a college athlete. A university is a place that athletes can go to not only work towards a degree, but they also have the opportunity to ready themselves for a professional career in whatever sport they are playing. In his article, Scoop Jackson says, "No one is making kids go to school to make money for the colleges and universities. They and their families choose to do this. It is an agreement that is not set up to pay them in ways that is fair in relation to the money the schools make from their participation. It's rather like taking an unpaid internship to prepare for a better job later in life. It is a trade-off" (Jackson). Like Jackson says, playing college sports is an investment for the student athletes. They are choosing not to be paid, but by choosing this path they are giving themselves the option to better themselves for the future. Instead of jumping right into a profession right away, college allows the athletes to play at a higher level of competition without being too overwhelmed. If a college athlete wants to be paid, then they should consider going pro right out of high school. It will save colleges from having to take part in this debate, and it will make that particular athlete happy, because they will be paid without a fight from a university.

Although there are a lot of people who believe that student athletes should not be paid, there are always going to be people who believe that they should. If there was not a different opinion on this argument, then there would not be a debate. Most people who are on the other side of the argument and believe that college athletes should be paid think this way because they see how much profit is being made each year on college athletics. Gary Pinkel, the former head football coach at the University of Missouri, thinks that college athletes should be paid because of how much money universities make off of their football and basketball programs. He assumes that colleges should take the money made from these two sports should be given to student athletes in a monthly budget so that they have enough pocket money to splurge every now and then (Pinkel). While Pinkel brings up an interesting point, it seems as though he is only talking about paying the football and men's basketball teams. They are making money for their schools, so they should be the ones rewarded for all of the hard work they put in day in and day out. What Pinkel does not seem to understand is that every single college athlete needs to be paid in this situation, no matter what sport they play. There needs to be equality or there are going to be problems. If schools were to implement Pinkel's strategy, then there might be discrepancies between schools. This will be an issue because collegiate athletic programs across the country will not have equal recruiting tactics, which will lead to unequal skill levels. Some schools might give athletes higher budgets and this may create problems for recruits, because recruits might choose the school with the highest budget. All of the highly ranked recruits will pick the schools that offer them the most money which may lead to all of the highly ranked athletes picking the same schools. Schools that can not offer money will be left with the lower skilled athletes because no highly ranked recruit will want to go to a school that can not pay them. 

State tax is a second problem that poses a problem for those that believe student athletes should be paid for participating in athletics. Kathryn Kisska-Schulze and Adam Epstein look at state taxes and how they affect schools, students, and the state. According to their research, if student athletes are paid then they may begin picking schools based on how much money they save. If a state's income tax is too high, then that athlete might decide to attend a different school because they want to be paid as much as possible (Kisska Schulze and Epstein). This is just another example of how paying student athletes can hurt the recruitment process. Greedy recruits will choose a school for how much money they can potentially make instead of choosing a school because it is the best fit for them academically and athletically. This can lead to a disparity between athletic programs around the country. The best way to avoid this situation is simple: do not pay college athletes.

Even though the best way to avoid the negative effects of paying college athletes is to not pay them, this is not the most practical solution. Both the university and its athletes should be happy, and deciding to not pay them will upset the athletes in some way. A solution to this problem was created at the University of Texas. At this university, athletes must partake in financial literacy courses that help prepare them for the future (Epstein). Doing this will help the athletes learn how to handle money responsibly. It will prepare the athletes that will make millions of dollars at the professional level, athletes who will struggle financially, and all of the athletes in between. Mike Gilleran brings up an interesting strategy for colleges in his article. Looking at it from a business standpoint, Gilleran suggests that colleges should be able to decide whether or not they want to adopt a business model for the athletic program (Gilleran). Giving colleges a choice allows them to decide if paying their athletes makes sense financially. If it does, it will make both parties happy, and if the business route is not the best way to go then the athletes will understand and can consider other options for college if they truly want to be paid. The best solution to the problem is to find a middle ground.

Recently, the debate over whether or not college athletes should be paid is starting to heat up. More and more people seem to have opinions on the matter, whether they are for or against it. Those for believe paying athletes is the right thing to do is because of how much schools make off of certain athletic programs, particularly football and men's basketball. Some strategies to pay these students include the NCAA paying student athletes for attendance costs, and many others (Goperlud). Overall, the possible negative consequences, like tension between students at the university, outweigh the positive effects, which are basically happy, paid athletes. Paying athletes may result in public backlash and financial problems for universities across the country. The only way to please everyone in this situation is to prevent the payment of student athletes, but create certain courses to help athletes understand money and allows colleges to decided whether or not they want to adopt a business model for athletic programs.

