Do you think colleges should pay their athletes?

[Britney]

What do you think? If not monetarily, I wonder how much leniance college athletes get in terms of grades and recommendations in their academic carreers.... is this however justified? Do good athletes bring colleges and universities enough acclaim that they deserve financial compensation?

[darkhelmet]

Do they deserve it? No. However, the system right now brings so much money to the successful programs that they practically have to.

[Twitchmonkey]

If the college is privately operated outside of the government I say they should be able to spend all their money on booze and hookers if they so desire.

[ExtraCheeZ]

Yes they deserve it. This is how it works.

5 people run in a 60000 seat stadium. 60000 people pay $50 each to watch and be entertained. The winner inspires thousands to join that specific college, thats 1000 x $20000 people who apply and pay for their courses.

Ok so the runners(atheletes) have just made their college $21,500,000.

Yeah I will admit thats a little rouge estimation, but its the same pricipal as movie stars. A million people pay 10 bucks each to wwatch your movie, you make 10 million.

[darkhelmet]

And a volunteer serving in Angola who saved a few thousands with vaccinations works for free.

They don't "deserve" it. Plenty of people who are going to school to become doctors, teachers, writers, etc. don't get a free pass (worth $160K basically!), but athletes do. I'd say they're lucky to get a free education.

[morty14]

Capitalism says they should be paid.
And handsomely at that.

So the real question is, "Do you believe in market capitalism?"

[darkhelmet]

morty14 said:

Capitalism says they should be paid.
And handsomely at that.

So the real question is, "Do you believe in market capitalism?"

Define "believe"! Belief in its existence, belief in its superiority, belief in it being the key for the nations' economic success?

[morty14]

darkhelmet said:

Define "believe"! Belief in its existence, belief in its superiority, belief in it being the key for the nations' economic success?

In this context, "believe" is referring to "belief in its superiority" or "belief that it should be used"

[darkhelmet]

I guess I believe in the principle of capitalism to an extent. It's the best system we have right now, for an economy, but it's not a real solution, especially not globally, since certain nations must be exploited for others to be prosperous.

I also don't think education and health care should be subject to capitalist constraints... I mean, everyone should have a chance, and that means education should be fair for everyone. Where I was going with this, I don't know.

Anyway, I think the current system is fine. They get college paid off, which is a HUGE expense, and free room and board and such. That's a good deal IMO, and they shouldn't get more breaks than that.

[ExtraCheeZ]

darkhelmet said:

And a volunteer serving in Angola who saved a few thousands with vaccinations works for free.

They don't "deserve" it. Plenty of people who are going to school to become doctors, teachers, writers, etc. don't get a free pass (worth $160K basically!), but athletes do. I'd say they're lucky to get a free education.

Being an eliete athelete is a little harder than volenteering and anyway, volenteering costs money, who do you think pays for the vaccinations? We do, by donations (in the same way we would pay to see a football match). Unfortunately less people what to donate then they want to be entertained, thus, atheletes get more of our money than volenteers do.

If you find it shocking or sad that the average human would rather spend $50 to watch some people run around on the field for an hour than spend $50 to save a humans life... well... all I can say is, that is why I hate the human race

You may say "oh but I dont do that" but think about it, whens the last time you spent 2 dollers on a beer or some cookies or wahtever your in to and thought to yourself "gee, I could send this money to some african kid".

We want to be entertained, so we pay athleites to entertain us.

[darkhelmet]

I gotcha. I'm just saying I can see why it happens, and the justification, but it still ain't right.

[Cortana]

extracheez said:

Yes they deserve it. This is how it works.

5 people run in a 60000 seat stadium. 60000 people pay $50 each to watch and be entertained. The winner inspires thousands to join that specific college, thats 1000 x $20000 people who apply and pay for their courses.

Ok so the runners(atheletes) have just made their college $21,500,000.

Yeah I will admit thats a little rouge estimation, but its the same pricipal as movie stars. A million people pay 10 bucks each to wwatch your movie, you make 10 million.

Not to mention sports require a lot of money to persue. Equipment isn't provided by the school, and to tell the truth, the stereotype of athletes probably holds true because they're too busy working for the reputation of the school to study (all of the athletes I know are constantly in practice). It's not necessarily fair, because they're not accepted on merit.

Now this I was thinking about the other day. I'm an art student, and I spend hundreds of dollars on art supplies for each semester. That's seperate from books-- it even amounts to more than my books. Not to mention that I spend a hell of a lot of time working on pieces for student galleries. My school is really big on these galleries, and my professor urges all of her students to send work. But despite the fact that each piece of art can cost upwards of 50 bucks to make (paints, matboard, bristol, canvas, pencils, etc), we don't even get special financial awards. I think that people that participate in activities that draw a lot from their own pockets (ie, the arts), should receive a more substantial amount of financial aid as well.

[ExtraCheeZ]

darkhelmet said:

I gotcha. I'm just saying I can see why it happens, and the justification, but it still ain't right.

I aint trying to justify it, I'm just explaining human nature. Meh, I should stop being so cynical .

I also had this realy insightfull reply to cortanas post, but either I stuffed up posting it or it got deleted so... to sumerise its contense: I agree with you cortana but people dont respect art as much as they enjoy watching two people punching each other in the face and because I'm cynical I come to the conclusion I do with sports versus volenteering.

[lulu]

Pay college athletes? I thought colleges like UCF and FSU already charged students a manditory $5,000+ for "Atheletic Department funding". Plus when athletes actually get drafted into the NFL, NBA or MLB they make more money than Adam Sandler every year. Even if the athlete is second string and warms the bench all year they still make a killing every year.

[Muad'dib]

I think ultimately anything that falls too far on the nationalistic pride is somewhere between sorrowful and pathetic.

Go figure.