Should College Athletes Be Paid?

The issue on whether college athletes should be paid has attracted a lot of debate of late, especially in United States. The fact that professional sports earn millions of money every year has been the main interest in this debate. However, it should be noted that the major purpose for students to join colleges is to study. Therefore, it is very important to consider how it will affect other students; specifically those would not make it into professional athletes.

Controversy on College Sports

Colleges earn millions of dollars every year though college athletes. However, these athletes earn from their efforts, despite consuming much of their study time doing practices. At the present, many youth strive to become professional athletes and achieve the highest ranks in the sport. However, at this stage, college athletes cannot be paid given that sports is part of curriculum programs offered in colleges which students should utilize to build on talents. However, this has led to increasing controversy on whether these should be paid for their hard work or not.

In every college, education should be given the first priority. Nevertheless, individuals who want to pursue professional sports should be given opportunities to exhibit their talents while taking easy classes. Surprisingly, students whose pursue professional art are given chance to market their paintings, while journalism and science students can have their works published and earn some amount in return. However, the case is very different with college athletes. Although they are given the opportunity to exhibit their talents, they do not receive any payments for their strain and hard work. Since most of the college athletes do not make into professional athletes, paying college athletes will make the professional sports become obsolete.

Effects of College Sports on Students’ Life

Before the decision whether to pay college athletes is made, several questions such as, is it ethically correct for college athletes to be paid? Need to be answered. Colleges should remain focused on education. Nevertheless, it should be noted that, college athletes who fail in class work as well as in professional sports may end up been a failure in life.

Therefore, the decision to pay college athletes will be a very severe mistake. The aim of college sports should remain refining the skills of the talented athletes to prepare them for the next level where they can receive rewards for their hard work. Moreover, college sports are extracurricular programs to help students cope with difficult academic life, which none should be paid for participating.