As you sit at a stadium or in your home and watch college football, basketball, or even baseball, do you ever wonder where the money goes from all the ticket sales? Colleges make a lot of money from their athletics. I feel that what is made should partly go back to the student athlete. College athletes should be paid for their participation in sports, since sports make a lot of money for their college. There are many reasons why I feel this way.
One reason that I feel this way is because a student athlete s schedule is very hectic. There are many activities that have to be attended daily. They are expected to go to class every day, and later in the day they are expected to meet at practice no matter what the sport. After practice, the student athlete must eat dinner. Then, the athlete s have to go home or to their dorm to do homework, which can last hours at a time.
There is little time during the day, to allow the student athlete to get a job. Most of the time coaches will not allow students to work, due to schedule conflict, and by working is hard on the students studies. If the coach doesn’t allow a job and there is no time for one, where does the student get money’student finances are very limited. Most of the money that students have is from parents or student loans, which must later be paid off.
Another reason students need money for food, gas and laundry. If a student eats three meals a day, it would usually cost them about fifteen dollars. For a five-day week it would be around seventy-five dollars. Usually, the student athletes do not travel much, because they do not have time, so gas expenses would be minimal. However there are those occasional trips home to see family. The student also needs money for laundry.
Laundry runs around five or six dollars per week. In the past, student athletes at colleges and universities were given laundry money, which was twenty-five to thirty dollars a week. The money could be spent freely. It was like an allowance that your parents would give you every week. Nowadays though athletes are not given money laundry which hurts them because they have to find a way to get money for that now too.
I feel that this little support would at least help the student when money is hard to come by at home. With the financial help of the college, a student athlete would only have to supply around fifty dollars per week instead of seventy- or eighty-five. A student would have fewer financial troubles if they were compensated for athletics. If athletes were paid, they could have a better start out of college. For instance, if the student athlete has to get a loan during college because he or she has no money for necessities, that student athlete has started to dig a financial hole.
That hole will be a trap for the student athlete when her or she graduates from college. Also, with aid the student athlete’s parents will not be financially troubled when the student graduates from college. It would make it easier on student athletes and their parents Physiologically and physically if student athletes were paid. Physiologically, the parents would not have to worry about paying the bills when tuition is due. Physically, the students would not have to break their back to work overtime, or to have a job while in school, and play athletics as well.
Some people will make the argument thats why should just athletes just get paid for attending college. They feel that if the school help s out athletes then you should help out all of the other students too because they also have a rather hard schedule. This argument is usually disregarded right away though because of the fact that athletes have a much more intense schedule than your normal everyday student does. They must do the same things that every other student does plus add in the hectic life of practice and everything else that comes with a sport.
I feel that student athletes have a lot to worry about. One is their grade; two is their performance in games. I feel the last thing a student athlete should worry about is how they are going to make money to pay for necessities, since the student plays a sport that makes money for the college, and some sports do make a great deal of money. Student athletes should be compensated for their participatio.
