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Should College Athletes Be Paid Essay

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Should college athletes be paid? As the topic continues to linger it only becomes more evident that something needs to be done. The so called non-profit organization that is known as the NCAA profits billions of dollars each year off of college athletes. In the YouTube special “Should we pay college athletes?” Newt Gingrich, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Christine Brennan, and Van Jones addressed this controversial topic. In this heated debate all the reasons why we need to pay college athletes were highlighted. We cannot ignore this issue any longer; too many student athletes are suffering. As discussed in the YouTube special, the universities are tarnishing the only compensation college athletes do receive; therefore, paying student athletes is a necessity. First, the main objective of college athletics is to provide a quality education to the student athletes, yet there have been countless situations in which the university has failed to do so. For instance, according to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a football player named Dexter Manley, who had played football at Oklahoma State University for four years and received his degree then went on to play …show more content…

Often the only opportunity student athletes have to receive a quality education is through an athletic scholarship. However, a surprising amount of college athletes lose scholarships as a result of an injury suffered while playing. For example, in 2013, 21,000 football players were injured and of those injured 800 of them were serious spinal injuries according to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In addition to losing their scholarships, the student athletes have to pay for their medical expenses caused by participating in college athletics. As a result, many student athletes are forced to leave school without finishing their degree and work in order to pay for their medical

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