Student-athlete compensation isn’t a scholarship, it’s a death sentence to their education

For a young athlete, receiving a letter from your top university inviting you to play your sport for them feels like the pinnacle of achievement. It’s exciting to have an opportunity to play at a higher level and to don the coveted title of student-athlete. They sign their letter of commitment imagining an idealistic life of playing their sport, exploring new interests and studying a topic they love. The problem is, they won’t be doing much studying at all.

Collegiate athletics have evolved to a point that they are nearly incompatible with the core mission of colleges, which is to provide young people with new life experiences and an education. When athletic achievement overshadows the main purpose of higher education, it starts to feel like colleges have lost the plot. Universities are places of learning, not professional training centers. Sports in college should primarily serve the purposes of enrichment and school spirit instead of being a source of revenue. Paying student-athletes to play their sports hurts their educational prospects and weakens the integrity of the university as an educational institution. 

 When student-athletes are paid by their college, they are pressured to prioritize their sport over all else. The NCAA found in a 2018 study that paying athletes hurts their education. When student-athletes are paid, their sport becomes the priority and school is shifted to the backburner. Student-athletes also don’t have time to get work experience, and many graduate college without having any idea what they want to do. The college experience should be well-rounded, and participating part-time in athletics helps students to be more well-rounded instead of focusing all of their time and attention on achieving the highest grades. However, college athletes participating in athletics at the highest level don’t have the necessary time to learn and grow from their college.

 Entering college on an athletic scholarship also puts pressure on student-athletes to stay in the sport for all four years, and in many cases, they may not be able to afford college if they lose their scholarship. This means that if they do happen to discover other interests, they aren’t able to pursue these. If they burn out or simply lose interest, they are forced to stay in the sport or lose their scholarship. Going to college should help students broaden their horizons, not force them to stay in a sport they started playing at age eight or nine.

Colleges are continually funneling money to their athletes that could be used to benefit the university in other ways, or to provide more scholarships for other students. Colleges rely increasingly on their athletics programs as a source of funding and use that to justify the exorbitant scholarships they hand out to their athletes. However, it’s hardly a fair trade-off when their need for funding deprives young people of a proper education.

These issues are further exacerbated by NIL (name, image and likeness) deals. NIL deals allow student-athletes to receive additional income just because of who they are. Some student-athletes are able to make up to six or seven figures from NIL deals. This further takes the focus away from the student-athlete’s education. Olivia Dunne, a gymnast at Louisiana State University, is the highest-paid female athlete in the NCAA and made $500,000 from a single brand deal. However, Dunne recently had to transition from in-person classes on campus to fully online classes, because her celebrity status made it difficult for her to be on campus. Dunne’s experience is not unique; many student-athletes who reach this level of success find it difficult to remain a student on campus, further detracting from their college experience.

 Student-athletes are being used by their university to bring in revenue at the expense of their education, because being a student-athlete is a full-time job. It stands to reason, then, that students should be compensated for their efforts. Student-athletes bring in additional revenue for their university, and to work student-athletes at the level which many schools do without compensating them would be blatant exploitation. A recent survey by Sportico found that 67% of American adults believe that student-athletes should be compensated by their schools. However, this perspective overlooks a key aspect of the situation— colleges are not professional sports leagues, nor are they athletic training centers. They’re places of education. There’s something awfully ironic about colleges depriving their students of the very education they promised to provide. No amount of compensation can restore the integrity that a college loses by hindering their students’ education.

It’s time for colleges to reconsider and redefine the role of athletics at their institution. Colleges need to refocus on their original purpose, which is to provide tomorrow’s leaders with a proper education. No financial need or desire for reputation should prevent colleges from doing right by their students. College administrators need to reconfigure the anatomy of their institutions so that they can return to serving their original purpose.