Analysis: Why College Athletes Should Not Be Paid

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Kieran McCauley once said, “If players are that good and feel they deserve to be paid, they can make it to the professionals.” McCauley is stating his opinion on whether or not college athletes should be paid. He says that if college athletes feel as if they should be paid like professionals, then they should make it to the professionals. Kieran McCauley is an author of the Daily Local News publishing site who has written all kinds of different articles discussing different kinds of sports situations. Athletes play sports in college because they want to continue doing what they enjoy doing most. Along with doing what they love, college athletes receive free education. Therefore, there is only one logical answer regarding the debate on paying…show more content…
Receiving free education for college means that payment for student loans, textbooks, on-campus living, meal plans, et cetera, are already settled. “Essentially they receive a free education and in return they represent the school in a certain sport. College athletes don’t have to worry about student loans, paying for textbooks, the cost of on-campus living, and meal plans” (Daily Local News; McCauley 1). Kieran McCauley’s words explain that college athletes receive free education in exchange for representing their school in a sport. Therefore, paying college athletes to represent their school with a sport, in exchange for receiving free education, would be unnecessary. When you think about it, receiving free education in exchange for a deed as minor as playing a sport that you love for that school, while getting paid, also in exchange for playing that sport, seems ridiculous. College is expensive and other students would do anything to receive free education. “What I am saying is that for too many of these young kids, college is too expensive and a free education becomes that much more valuable” (State News; Merkle). Andrew Merkle explains that receiving free education is the real reward for playing college sports, getting paid is just a bonus that makes things unfair and causes more trouble. Paying college athletes after…show more content…
Arguments on how much a college athlete should be paid based on the sport they play or how skilled they are would grow from the decision of paying college athletes. “Another problem with paying college athletes is the ambiguity in the importance of each sport. Would all the athletes get paid the same amount? If so, that certainly seems strange and borderline unfair” (Daily Local News; McCauley 1). McCauley explains that paying college athletes would create inequality. He points out that the best decision would be to not pay college athletes because it would keep the equality amongst the different kinds of sports. There would be inequality between the college students and the college athletes as well. If the decision would be to pay college athletes, that would be unfair to the regular college students attending that school. Regular college students would have to pay for their education along with everything that comes with it unlike college athletes who receive free education and would be paid to do what they love while representing their school. “I think student athletes receiving compensation will hurt the image of college athletics, as well as create a (bigger) rift between student athletes and students who do not participate in sports” (State News; Merkle). Merkle states that paying college athletes would separate college students from college athlete students
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