Dear Next President,

Did your kids play sports for their college? Were they paid for their play? Did they dedicate their lives to being a great player, only to get nothing in return but to make their school money? If the answer is no to any of those, then you understand that their is a problem. I am someone who advocates for the payment of college athletes, all around America. According to http://www.ncaa.org/ , only 1.6% of the 72,788 College Football particpants from 2015-2016 made into any professional leagues;NFL ,CFL,etc. All of that time spent, with no compensation. All of the injury possibilities , with no protection.

On October 16, 2010. The Rutgers Scarlet Knights played a football game against the Army Black Knights. Eric LeGrand of Rutgers was running down the field on a kickoff and he collided head first with the ball carrier Malcolm Brown of Army. Malcolm got up unharmed, Eric didn’t get up at all. Eric LeGrand was paralyzed that day, and it ended his playing career. This is just one example of a player being unable to play their sport anymore, and this is another example of school allowing their student athletes to be expendable and not really provide them with help. According to https://www.petersons.com/, If you suffer a career-ending injury and can no longer compete, some institutions will not continue to provide you with an athletic student scholarship. That is awful, you’re family is basically left with all of the expenses if you suffer a career ending injury, and the Billion dollar College just collects money with no care in the world. Medical bills could go up into the tens of thousands, taking away all future health insurance for a family. Is that what you want this country to stand for? Is free labor in this country okay to you? Everyone knows that this is what it’s starting to seem like. The school should be held accountable.

Some people have problems with college athletes being paid. Something they say is that these athletes already are having their schooling paid through athletic scholarships. That is true, but not everyone is privileged enough to have a scholarship, and they join their respective teams through hard work. These students with no scholarships still have to pay their own tuition. Another thing people say is that giving money to the students will deviate from what the students came to the college in the first place. That may be true for some, but if you’re working a full time job and don’t like how much you’re getting paid,you most likely will go to a different job. These athletes however, don’t have that luxury, even though they work almost full time. A misconception about college athletes is that their scholarships a fully guaranteed for all 4 years or longer. That is not the case. The school can take away the scholarship at any time since it is year to year. That means, if you happen to get injured like Eric LeGrand did , all of the benefits from your scholarship may be gone.

People in America deserve to be paid for their hard work. Do you get paid for doing your job? Student athletes risk many things by playing for their school. However, there are many reasons why they do. With that being said, the vast majority of athletes end up not making into a professional league. Since these athletes are unable to have actual jobs during college due to NCAA policies and the amount of time spent at playing and training for their sport, these students are left at the bottom when they graduate. They have their degree if they finish all four years, but since they had no job during college, they have a small amount of money to live with until they eventually get a job. The worst part is, for a lot of students struggle finding jobs when they graduate college, but having money during their time in school would help greatly. But, there’s a way to fix this.

Money rules the world, and these student athletes are left with the short end of the stick since they aren’t being paid their play. These universities are worth billions of dollars, yet they don’t give that to the student athletes. My solution is that student athletes should get a percentage of the money bought from their team's merchandise, the ticket sales for games, and should be allowed to sell signed items. It could all go into a debit card for them, that is sanctioned by the NCAA and their university. This could just be a start, later on they could get a minimum sum of money added onto the card through their school. It would help them out in the long run. Giving them money would take away the “boosters” or sports agents that bribe star athletes with money. Taking money as a student athlete is currently an NCAA violation, but wouldn’t giving them money for their hard work be the American thing to do?

Sincerely,

Makyle; A Future College Student