It is a common misconception that college athletes have it easy in college. While the athletes that are on scholarship a do not have to pay tuition or for housing there are still costs for them to cover and a lot of them can not afford to pay these fees. The truth is a number of college level athletes would not be in school if it weren't for their abilities on the field or court and in todays college sports world that is why they are in school, to play sports and not to learn. Because of the separation of education and college athletics in big time college sports and the way corporations and coaches profit from their performances athletes need to be better compensated for their efforts during their college years. The prospect of potentially playing professionally is not enough for the athletes considering the amount of input required.

In todays college athletic world there is very little meaning to the term student athlete anymore. These athletes choose a school to attend based purely off of potential to be drafted, put second is the prospect of actually getting a degree because they are focused solely on playing and their futures as an athlete. Even universities who are very aware of how much monetary gain there is in a good college athlete and only take actions for their education to satisfy rules and regulations to allow the students to play at the university "colleges provide underqualified athletes with advisers who point them toward easier courses and majors and offer extraordinary amounts of academic coaching and tutoring, primarily designed to keep athletes eligible to play." (Gutting, Gary). College athletes also are required to put a lot more into a day than a regular student to maintain the grade requirements that make them eligible to play. Most college athletes get up at six in the morning or earlier to eat food before practice and then its off to school with another practice following that and then they have schoolwork to attend to. Their whole schedule focuses on their ability as a player versus their potential as a student making sure they get their daily practices and meetings in before even sitting down to do homework for their classes the next day. 

Not only is being a college athlete a full time job with less than adequate compensation for their services but while they are at practice, preparing to put on a show for the fans the huge corporations that feed off of their abilities as athletes are making huge sums of money and are pocketing almost one hundred percent of the the profits. During the march madness tournament which happens to be rapping itself up tonight the television companies responsible for airing the games make over one billion dollars just during the tournament alone which is only a period of three to four weeks "The NCAA basketball tournaments, or "March Madness," have become a huge business. As Forbes' Chris Smith wrote, CBS and Turner Broadcasting make more than $1 billion off the games" (US News & World Report). The big corporations are not the only ones bringing in huge sums of money for their teams successes but the average athletics income of the top 10 most lucrative college athletics programs brings in hundreds of millions of dollars while they spend a figure minute in comparison on scholarship money "In 2014, the ten schools that made the most money in college sports averaged $144.8 million in athletics revenue, $132.5 million more than the average those schools spent on scholarships, $12.4 million." (Business Insider). Not only do these schools make vastly more than they spend on scholarship, they haven't increased their spending on scholarship as profits have increased as the gap between the two figures has only increased "Just ten years ago, the gap between the two figures for these ten schools was just $63.2 million." (Business Insider). All this and even the people who are supposed to be representing the athletes also take a huge cut of the cake as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) takes in about six billion per year. The president alone makes plenty of money "NCAA President Mark Emmert was credited with more than $1.8 million in compensation during the 2013 calendar year" (USA Today). If executives of the NCAA, make as much as they do and the Association as a whole makes as much as it does then athletes deserve better compensation. 

Large corporations and the NCAA are not the only parties that take big cuts of the cake as the coaches of some of the more notable teams in college athletics make a pretty penny as well. Nick Saban, Alabama's head football coach has been the highest paid coach in the NCAAF world for the past 2 years while since recently jumping down a rung from being head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, a professional football team, coach Jim Harbaugh recently took the head coaching position at the University of Michigan and with it the second highest salary as a head football coach. While this might not seem such a bad thing as coaches like Saban and Harbaugh bring talent and big wins for their teams, especially seeing as Saban's Crimson Tide has won four national championships in the last eight years, all eight of which Saban was head coach. While these coaches and coaches like them certainly bring talent and set up a team for victories which bring the school money is it not really the players that do the work. Saban and Harbaugh make around seven million each with room for bonus in case they win the national championship or a conference championship while their players are not even compensated properly for their efforts. 

There are several counter arguments to why student athletes at the college level should not be paid. One of the more popular arguments is that if you were to start paying them it would make the term student athlete even less important but as mentioned earlier that term is all but meaningful and in the current landscape of college athletics there is a bigger emphasis put on the athlete side of the student athlete term. Another commonly used counter argument is that athletes playing at the college level are amateurs that are choosing to participate at the college level because it is something fun for them to do. While many athletes in college love what they have the opportunity to do you could make a case that division 1 athletes are anything but amateurs while a stronger case could be made for division II or III athletes being amateurs as many of them do not have a very serious chance at playing at the professional level. Considering the advent of the one and done college basketball player due to the NCAA rule that forces someone to be 19 before entering the National Basketball Association (NBA) further shows how un amateur these athletes are as a few of them could be going to the NBA as a high schooler. 

All in all, college athletes are being done an injustice by not being compensated fairly while large television companies, the NCAA, and their coaches are enjoying fat salaries and living the good like. Yes, some of the athletes are getting exposer to professional teams for free basically but the vast majority of college athletes are not going to be playing at the professional level yet they show up to practice and put in the same amount of effort as someone who does have the potential to play at the professional level. How should they be paid is the question to be asked at this point and the answer is as open market as possible as it would promote competition between teams. These kids put on a show every fall and every march for millions of Americans and yet they reap little to no rewards and millions are made because of them. Just imagine if there was no such thing as March Madness or College football every fall and who is it hurting if the kids who provide you with so much entertainment have a little extra spending cash? 
