To pay or not to pay

To pay or not to pay? That is the question. After speaking with Sterling Randle and Alex Clark , the sports editors for the on campus newspaper, I learned that there is not one clear answer on this issue. Randle is fully supportive of paying athletes and feel that it is simply not right that athletes are not compensated for jersey sales. However, he does not believe that it would be possible to pay all college athletes. Clark on the other hand feels that athletes already receive a free education which is more than fair in his mind when it comes to compensation for athletes. He also thinks that if schools were to start to pay athletes then this would diminish collegiate sports. 

"If we start paying athletes then I think it will destroy college athletics," said Clark. I think by paying athletes, college football would become the NFL d-league. This would mean that all the good athletes would go to the schools that are willing to pay the most and the smaller schools would not longer be able to compete with them."  

Here is a video against paying college athletes.

On Reddit, I thought one person made a very good point in support of paying athletes. 

"While they(athletes) are being compensated for playing by being given a scholarships you have to realize that they do not go to school, play their given sport, then go to bed only to repeat. Education is not money. While a scholarship has significant value, it cannot be exchanged for money. A student who comes from a poor family cannot use the "payment" of education to help feed his family, buy clothes, or other things, and if he tries to borrow money from anyone for this purpose, he and the school are struck with sanctions and suspensions. Unlike other college students, they do not have time to get a job, or paid internship to help pay for these things. Then is the problem of how much. I believe they should be given reasonable compensation. Ways to do this would be for them to get a cut of revenue, or seek endorsements."

Here's a video in support of paying athletes. 

I think that this is an issue that needs to be changed but I don't think that there is one right answer to this problem. However, I hope that someday college athletes can be paid for their merchandize.