Recently, Veronica Majerol of the New York Times Upfront magazine wrote an article titled “Should College Athletes Be Paid? Two recent rulings may change the face of college sports.” Students from The Rambler weighed in with their own opinions on the subject. 
The age old question of whether or not a college student athlete should be compensated for playing a sport for a university. Many believe that most times the athletes receive a free education on scholarships that they need no further incentive to play their sport. The untold truth of the matter is that these athletes, though they will not be under any crippling debt like other college students will, go through tremendous struggles on a daily basis. Their time is mainly consumed by practice, workouts, film studies, and other various team activities that limit their time for school work and cause an extreme overflow of stress. Along with the added stress, college athletes are not allowed to have a part time job while they are on scholarship, due to the fact that this might hinder their involvement to the team. Without being able to have some extra income, athletes face a major problem in trying to attempt to have a social life or even a more serious problem, come home from college on breaks and such to see their loved ones throughout the year.
While it should not be suggested that these athletes should make any type of professional pay, a small paycheck may be in some sort of order for these hardworking, dedicated student-athletes that bring in a large amount of revenue to the universities across the country. A suggestion could possibly be paying the players a minimum wage salary for practice, workout, and games allotted over the weeks during the season. However, the major dilemma would be deciding how to split the revenue between all the sports carried by a university, even some that do not generate as much revenue as the bigger programs.
-Edward Ruff III
College athletes have gone under much scrutiny in recent years, making a push to become paid athletes on top of free schooling. The college athletes should not be paid for their participation in college athletics, however. They are already receiving free schooling and as much food as they want. They weighting of college athletes receiving different amounts of money for different sports would be extremely unfair. Removing their status as amateur athletes would destroy the gap between pro and college athletics.
-Joe Sala
I agree that if an athlete’s likeness is used to make money for the university then the student-athlete should get a cut. I don’t think that college athletes being paid should be kept to the sports that make the most income like football and basketball, though, because that is not fair to sports that are not as popular in society like soccer and baseball
The likenesses of student-athletes in media does warrant athletes being paid, however, if a college is making money from marketing the player, or the player is featured in something like an advertisement or a video game. Being paid just for playing, however, is not viable for college athletes in my opinion. Maybe being given the choice of a scholarship or being paid could be offered, but being allowed to go to school for free and also being paid to pay for that school shouldn’t be allowed.
-Ryan Signorino
I don’t agree with the athletes being paid. During high school, athletes are just trying to make it to the next level so they can experience playing for a big time team that everyone knows about. For the ones who do play college sports, they often receive a large sum of money to pay off their college tuition, and now even their college meals. I think if you start giving these guys money, they are going to become extremely greedy and take a turn for the worse on how they spend it. You also cannot give them money because it becomes a fairness issue between different sports, and everything would become way out of hand. It has been a tradition for these athletes to play for pride so I think if you bring money into the equation, it will ruin what it means to be a college athlete.
-Jack Kloecker
No, student athletes should not be paid. With the scholarships they already have, they are basically being paid already. Through these perks that they already have, paying them would be ridiculously unfair to other students.
-Eli Chase
I think that they should pay college athletes because they are in college playing their hearts out and trying to make it to the pros. But what if they get hurt and it is the end of their football career? All of that talent and those dreams of making it to the pros are out the window. That’s why I think college athletes should get paid.
-Chris Muldrew