Should High School Athletes Be Paid Essay

High school athletes go through career ending experiences everyday 22% of these are mental and the vast majority are physical and the majority of the time these experiences are for nothing. The majority of people don’t think that high school athletes should be paid because of how the amount of time students put into school vs sports would change dramatically, but some students are already getting paid for their academics. These students also have seen better improvements in the classroom, so if we were to reward athletes in the same way then maybe their performance in both sports and school would improve due to the fact that they would begin to put the max amount of effort into their assignments so they can play in the sports. High School

The risk that High School athletes are put at when they step out on the field or court may have gotten too far. High school athletes are put at risk the second they pick up that jersey or even sign up for a certain sports team. Student athletes are not just put at risk by physical injuries they also suffer from mental health conditions and disorders. Studies have shown that 15%-21% of high school athletes suffer from depression which is double the rate of American adults and 22% of male and female athletes suffer from mental health conditions. These athletes do these things on a daily basis so they deserve to earn income from their performance. They not only suffer from mental health factors but also from physical injuries from as little as small ankle sprains to ACL tears and career

The number of high school athletes that play a sport at the collegiate level compared to the amount of high school athletes is on another level and those numbers aren’t even the amount of people who earn a scholarship. 7% of high school athletes play a sport in college and only 2% earn a scholarship to play in college and there are millions of high school athletes so these numbers are at an all time low. The factor of scholarships isn't even the main reason for the lack of college athletes playing their sports. The factor of expenses is another main reason that high school athletes don’t attend college, normally they have the ability to take out a loan of some sort but even with that these athletes still can’t afford the cost of college. If these athletes were allowed to play in high school and earn certain amounts of income based on their performance, the amount of high school athletes playing at the next level would increase drastically due to cost and ability to afford the expenses. This also could just increase the amount of people who go to college just to earn an education cause the cost would be more affordable for all high school students and student