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George Roddy
Ms. Storer
Is it egregious to compensate one person but not another for performing the same tasks?
The California bill, SB 206, should not be implemented on a national scale because if student-
athletes are paid it will create a morale issue for students who are not being compensated and
If college athletes are compensated, it will make students who do not receive any profits
feel inferior to those that do. Gregory Melick, a sports analysist who covers the NCAA
extensively, states that “if certain athletes are essentially getting punished for not playing the
‘right’ sport, those ‘wrong’ sports will suffer. They will lose popularity because top athletes who
may be able to play multiple sports will choose the more lucrative ones” (Melik). Student-
athletes from other sports can work just as hard as the individuals getting paid but will not
receive anything because their sport does not receive as much attention. If this becomes the
reality, the athletically gifted participants of less popular sports will leave their sport to pursue
opportunities in those sports that pay athletes. The participants remaining in the less popular
sports will have marginal athletic ability, thus rendering these sports as having trivial
importance. Jonathan R. Cole, an American sociologist, states “those [universities] that are
lodged in the ‘highly selective’ category are admitting too many athletes and potentially denying
admissions to extraordinarily able foreign and minority students, as well as future artists and
writers and political scientists and economists and engineers” (Cole). If this happens, it will
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displace scholars from critical academic fields. This will lead to harmful deterioration of
society’s ability to maintain leadership resources in critical professional fields. This will lower
the morale of the student body because students will feel they have less value than student-
athletes who are compensated. In addition to diminishing the morale of students who are not
being paid, compensating student-athletes defeats the true purpose of a college education.
education. Derek Bok, an American lawyer and former president of Harvard, states that “the
most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and
knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like”
(Bok). It is evident that the main reason an individual should attend a university is to receive an
education, not to be paid. If one wants to receive compensation for playing a sport, there are
various alternatives, such as playing overseas. One may then question, why would a big-name
athlete not choose to play overseas? A clear answer is that they would not receive as much
attention from scouts if they chose to play overseas. Although this is a valid argument, there are
many players, including LaMelo Ball, who play professionally overseas and are projected to be
high draft picks. Jonathan R. Cole states that if student-athletes are paid, the higher education
system will have “perverted some of its core values—to rigorously teach academic subject
matter, prepare better citizens, and improve their independent thinking and their critical
profits, it will take away from the university’s academic objective. Universities will be more
focused on financial gains from inflated box office ticket sales at events showcasing professional
day, the athlete attending the university is a student, meaning that their main purpose is to
A popular argument for why student-athletes should receive profits is because the
reimbursement of college athletes may lead the athletes to want to stay in college even longer.
This can promote better ways to effectively use taxpayer money towards athletes completing
their degrees. However, according to the NCAA, “if compensated, only 2% of student-athletes,
who are eligible to leave college and play professionally, are willing to return to college to
complete their degree” (NCAA). Ultimately, student-athletes do not want to return to college if
they are given the chance to play professionally. Even if an athlete receives profits in college,
the financial gain will not be nearly as close to the profits they would gain in a professional
league. Another NCAA statistic reveals that “over 80% of student-athletes attain a bachelor’s
degree” (NCAA). Only 20% (92,000) student athletes do not receive a degree. Compared to the
whopping 17 million students nationwide, these mere 92,000 college athletes who do not attain a
degree is insignificant in the eyes of a taxpayer. Overall, taxpayers will not suffer from these
20% of student-athletes who do not receive their bachelor’s degree because they are still
supporting the overwhelming millions of students who are receiving degrees. All in all,
compensating student-athletes will not be the deciding factor for them continuing their college
Student-athletes should not be paid because it will lower the morale of both student-
athletes and the general student body. Those student-athletes participating in uncompensated
low-visibility sports, will see their sport marginalized as athletes pursue sports that attract
compensation. The incentives to attract gifted, but non-academically focused athletes into
universities will deny admission of scholarly gifted students who otherwise would have
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corrupt the academic mission of higher learning institutions by turning them into venues where
some students pursue the goal of attaining wealth. The evidence clearly supports the notion that
college athletes should not be compensated. Would paying a student-athlete to play a sport make
it justifiable to pay a regular student to study? What would be the criteria for deciding which
sports will have compensated student-athletes? Should all sports, including the less popular
ones, have compensation for the participants? Should financial incentives be limited to the
existing proven system of scholarships that has served higher level education institutions and
Works Cited
Burnsed, Brian. “Athletics Departments That Make More than They Spend Still a
www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/athletics-departments-make-more-they-
spend-still-minority.
Cole, Jonathan R. “Why Sports and Elite Academics Do Not Mix.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media
student-athletes/518739/.
Melick , Gregory. “Opposing Viewpoints: The Problem with Paying College Athletes.” News-
student-athletes.
www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/Recruiting%20Fact%20Sheet%20WEB.pdf.
www.ncaa.org/student-athletes.