Why Should College Athletes Be Paid?

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Running Head: Why Should College Athletes be Paid? 1 Why Should College Athletes be Paid? Jarod Sjogren Gwinnett Online Campus Authors Note Written for Honors American Literature, taught by Danielle King Why Should College Athletes be Paid? 2 Throughout the era of college sports there has been a large and continuous debate about why and whether or not college athletes should be paid for the services and income they provide their respective colleges. In most cases people agree that college students simply do not have the time to maintain a job while having to juggle college classes and sports practices. They end up having to rely on grants and their parent’s money to pay for their basic needs, which is exactly why they deserve even a small amount of the college’s income. What many people understand and empathize with is that “Being an athlete is a full-time job” (Hartnett, 2013). People who maintain a full time job and are in any type of school will attest that with all that’s going on in those two worlds, there is hardly any room left over for anything else, especially another job. This is the struggle that athletes who are playing for their colleges are experiencing. Often what is assumed is that college sports only bring in small revenue for colleges every year, many people guess that the total is around $50 million. But, in-fact colleges make nearly $170 million a year and are possibly going to make up to $480 million a year once they switch to a new playoff series says Jonathan Mahler in his article on paying college athletes (2014). So, if colleges are making that much off of their athletic programs alone, why isn’t some of that revenue going towards helping the athletes who are responsible for this some financial aid? Why Should College Athletes be Paid? 3 As College Online says,

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