In today’s society, paying college athletes to play is a huge topic of discussion that never gets old.  This is a topic college student athletes have been pushing the NCAA to pass for a long time. 

The current NCAA rule states that a college student athlete cannot be paid to play based on their performance, and I fully agree with this rule.

Paying college student athletes to play can easily sway students’ perception of college. It will send a bad message to the athlete, and they would come to college for the wrong reason.  Recruiting would not even exist anymore.  Instead of choosing the best school that fits them academically, athletes would just choose to come to the school that would pay them the most.  The smaller schools in smaller markets would not be able to compete with the big universities, which would result in loss of programs for many schools. The athletes would be coming to college strictly to play their respective sport and not try to pursue any type of degree.  They are student athletes — the student part comes first. 

Most student athletes are already receiving scholarships.  They have the next four years of their lives set. 

Regular students, like myself, struggle to find grants and loans to pay for tuition and to pay off our holds, while on the other hand, athletes walk around campus nearly carefree  because they know everything is paid for.  They receive tuition, room and board, meal plans, books and everything else their scholarship may cover. 

While athletes demand to be paid for their play, most of them do not realize the school does  not have the money in its budget to pay them. These days, there are many college athletes leaving early to turn pro, so why would the schools want to invest large amounts of money in players who are not even guaranteed to stay for all four years?  Most of the school’s money is used toward them anyway by giving them scholarships and by building private facilities strictly for athletes. 

An additional concern, and perhaps the biggest issue about paying college athletes, is how would you pay them? How would all of this work?  If you pay one athlete or sport, then you have to pay them all. This is a disaster waiting to happen. How will the money be distributed? Who would determine the pay scale? Will division two or three schools, get paid as well? What about community colleges?  There would be so much controversy and contract disputes it would do nothing but cause a big dilemma throughout collegiate athletics.
Many of the athletes are just motivated by greed and want extra benefits on the side by getting paid to play.  There are many complications that would go into paying the players to play. I don’t know if college players will ever be paid, but I believe the rule should stay as is.