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Student-athletes need to remember that they are students first. The value of a free education is incalculable.
The latest in the NCAA pay-for-play lawsuit carousel comes from USC. Former player Lamar Dawson has filed a class-action lawsuit against both the NCAA and the Pac-12. The suit asserts that Dawson and other college athletes have not been compensated fairly for their efforts playing sports. This is an old debate, but one that deserves yet another look because it seems to keep rearing its ugly head. These lawsuits teeter on the side of frivolity.
The suit is unreasonable in part because these student-athletes already get a fine compensation in the form of a free education; and in part because if the suit is successful it sends the message that college athletics have more import than academics. If we start to pay these college athletes, we are setting a dangerous precedent, because we are essentially telling students that educational pursuits don’t matter as much as athletic ones.
There is no way to ensure parity to all students, so the debate needs to be dropped. Personally, I think that the chemical engineer at Georgia Tech that is actively working on a successful immunization against cancer genomes brings far more value to society than a mouthy football player, no matter how talented.
Obviously I love college football, but I am not going to make the case that a football player at a Division I school has more value than the average student. The athlete is getting free tuition already, in addition to free room, board, free medical and travel expenses, and the use of exclusive athletic facilities. They are also innumerable other benefits such as free tutoring. The athlete also gets a chance to audition for a job in the professional arena while getting the equivalent of a six-figure salary. Add all of that up, and you have about $22,000 per year-and that number is on the low end of the spectrum.
In addition, once they do graduate, they will leave college with no student loan debt. I cannot even begin to emphasize how immense that is. The average student who takes out loans will leave college with an average of about $30,000 in loan debt. The student athlete not only got all of those nifty benefits, they also get to graduate without worrisome debt.
I am not saying that the NCAA doesn’t need to reform some of its rules or that the organization is without flaws, but according to Forbes, 96% of the money that the NCAA earns goes back to the schools. They aren’t hiding the money in some dragon hoard while the student-athletes starve in the streets. Also, what if the athlete fails out? Should he have to reimburse the school? After all, he failed to fulfill his part of the contractual obligation he made to that university.
At the end of the day, these students are there to get an education. If they get a free one, they have already received their value in full. Before we jump on the bandwagon and try to make the NCAA into the NFL or the NBA, we need to remember that.
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