Sam Okerbloom Klepfer IWCC Composition II: Argumentative Essay 8 May 2024 (College Athletes Should Not Be Paid) Argumentative Essay DIRECTIONS (and RESOURCES) College sports have been around for a long time. With this, certain rules have been put in place over the years. One heavily debated rule set into place is that college athletes aren’t allowed to be paid. The NCAA tournament is one of the most watched college events every year. This popularity brings with it a significant controversy: should college athletes receive direct compensation for their hard work? The NCAA argues they should not, and set this rule into place because they felt it kept the integrity of the game intact. Grand Canyon University explains that one of the NCAA’s goals …show more content…
Building on the financial disparities, another significant issue with paying athletes is because it takes away from the main priority of college. Paying college athletes undermines the primary purpose of higher education: academics. Colleges are institutions of learning first, and sports should come as a complement to this educational mission. An article that supports this is “Should College Athletes Be Paid,” which was published under Junior Scholastic, where they state: College sports provide hundreds of thousands of student athletes the opportunity to play the sports they love while getting the education and skills they need to succeed after college. Paying students to play would turn them into employees, shifting their focus away from academics. (“Should College Athletes Be Paid” [Junior Scholastic]) This helps support that the main idea of a college is to teach academics and give them the opportunity to learn. Sports are provided as an extra opportunity for students, not as a job. Additionally, if students shift their focus away from academics, they could miss out on serious things that could help them later in