Should Student Athletes Be Paid

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Colleges all over the nation house over 100,000 student athletes who play a variety of different sports that their school provides. Of the large number of student athletes in the country, exactly 0 of them are paid by their college or the NCAA. The NCAA and colleges have reasons for why they do not pay their student athletes. They system that is currently being used has no flaws and changing it in any way will just raise new and even bigger problems. The system being used now gives student athletes opportunities to better themselves and further their career in the sport they love, without them getting everything handed to them. If these athletes were to be given pay, they would start to think that they are professional and that is exactly what they are not. They play because they love competition, teamwork, and the sport. There is no reason to pay college athletes because they are students first and academics should be one’s first priority, they receive their fair share in extras, many of the …show more content…
These student athletes are students before anything. They are there to earn a degree, playing sports is just an extracurricular activity. Cinnamon Sheffield, Athletic director at the University of North Texas, gives points as to why student athletes should not be paid. She says “The main reason they will be coming to UNT is to earn a degree which they will own for the rest of their lives.” She stresses how important earning your degree is over playing a college sport. She also says “We remind them that athletics is a privilege, academics are the priority” (Sheffield). This reinforces why college athletes should not be paid. Their academic progress should be the most important thing to them while attending college. Paying these student athletes would convert their focus to the money, and no longer would focus on obtaining their