We live in a world where everyone thinks they deserve a paycheck and this is alive more than ever with collegiate athletes, but I strongly believe that they should not be paid whatsoever. Even as an athlete, who has always wanted to play college sports, I don’t think it’s necessary in the slightest.

The main reason I feel this way is that college sports is where the most elite competition battles to finally make it to the top or the big-leagues. This competitiveness is what makes college sports way more riveting than professional sports to me because they still have more to prove. Everything they do is to go to the pros and eventually be paid for simply doing what they love, playing their mastered sport.  

According to www.ncaa.org only about 1.1 percent of men’s basketball players and 0.9 percent of women’s basketball players go on to play professionally from the college level, and that’s just looking at one sport.

Obviously this shows the very miniscule amount of athletes that are lucky enough to have the ability to get paid to play. College athletes should have to wait for their professional years, if they ever get there, to be paid because that’s what makes that small percentage worth anything. If lots of athletes went to play professionally then it wouldn’t be nearly as meaningful, but that isn’t the case.

Another reason I believe college athletes shouldn’t be paid is because it isn’t fair for everyone else. When someone plays a college sport, at least at the Division I level, many consider them as a near expert of that sport. And this makes complete sense. But if this is true then why wouldn’t students in school to become doctors, near experts of the medical field, be paid for going to college? Here’s the gray area. Both college students are training to become experts, so why would it make sense for one of them (the athlete) to be paid rather than the other (the medical student)?

Many people on the other side of this argument often bring up the point that college athletes put in so much work outside of their academic careers that they deserve the pay. There’s so much to do with all of the weight training, conditioning and speed training as well as all of the practices, film sessions and games. After adding all of this up, it’s a pretty packed schedule for the life of a collegiate student athlete, much more packed than it is in high school.

Along with the argument above, many people also have a problem with the fact that other students apart from athletes are able to use their skills as a way to earn money. For example, musicians can play at venues and students can use whatever they’re studying to possibly get internships and receive pay for that.

The problem with this is that these students who are using their skill sets as a way of earning money aren’t doing it in affiliation with the school. A musician who would play at a local coffee shop every Tuesday and Friday night and attend school at the college just 5 minutes down the road wouldn’t necessarily be wearing anything that signified their association with the school. So the musician’s pay would be from a different mean not affiliated with the school in any way.

To the people who say that collegiate athletes do more work than the average student aren’t taking one thing into consideration. Collegiate athletes aren’t paid but they are by all means compensated through athletic scholarships. In an article on www.dailylocal.com, Kieran McCauley said, “College athletes don’t have to worry about student loans, paying for textbooks, the cost of on-campus living, and meal plans.” College athletes are given enough as it is so there is no reason to give them the one thing they don’t have: a salary. If they can reach that last level of success by  themselves by going pro then they will be rewarded with the salary.