For many years now, the debate if college athletes should get paid, has been ongoing. Many people think it’s not the best idea because these athletes are still students and that’s not fair to all the other students who aren’t athletes. However, some people think that it’s a good idea college athletes get paid because people feel as though the students are working two full-time jobs. Many articles bring insight to these ideas and how the debate started.

In a recent article posted in 2019 “NCAA Plans to Allow College Athletes to get Paid for Use of Their Names” explains how the NCAA started to consider paying college athletes. The NCAA wasn’t fond of the ideas of paying college athletes. However, once California had passed the bill that made it illegal for schools to ban students from getting compensation from advertisers. Soon, Illinois, Florida, New York, and other states decided to join this idea. The NCAA has now started to think about the idea of paying college athletes and giving some of them scholarships. Even though the NCAA isn’t giving all college athletes scholarships, their goal is to be fair to everyone.

After reading this article, it is clear that the author is bias in their writing. The author makes it clear that they think college athletes should get paid. This is made clear by not bringing up anything about how college athletes should not get paid and instead bringing up how they are starting to get paid. The author thinks it’s fair for college athletes to get paid and they are glad that the NCAA is changing their mind and starting to agree.

However, before the NCAA agreed to paying students, they had their disagreements. In the article written in August of this year, “Opinion: The Case for Paying College Athletes” it’s explained why the NCAA doesn’t want to pay athletes. The NCAA believes that it’s not reasonable for college athletes to get paid because they are still students. Even though this is true, these athletes have a very heavy workload with academics and school. Some athletes rack up 34 hours a week in practice plus academic semester hours of up to 18. This is more than a full-time job. A UCLA quarterback, Josh Rosen, feels as though with being a college football athlete and a full time student, he is working two full-time jobs. The NCAA only allows 20 hours of practice in a week. However, it seems as though this is not being monitored making it hard for college athletes to find time to have a normal college experience.

At the end of the article, the author makes his opinion clear. By stating that he thinks the NCAA needs to start doing their part, as in paying the athletes, he states his bias of thinking that college athletes need to be paid. A reader may at first think that he doesn’t think he wants college athletes to get paid because he states all the reasons why NCAA doesn’t think the students should get paid. However, as one continues to read the article, the author’s opinion becomes more clear.

As there is for every debate, there are pros and cons. In the article, “Should College Athletes Get Paid?” pros and cons are talked about. Some reasons as too why college athletes should get paid include that there is not implementing difficulty, college athletes risk permanent damage to their body, and lots of money is already a part of college sports. The reason why there is not implementing difficulty is because it’s already been discussed that the athletes that would/should get paid are the ones that bring in more revenue. These sports include college football and college basketball. Along with these sports bringing in the most revenue, these sports can also have a lot of career ending injuries that have the possibility to leave permanent damage. Money is also not a big concern because college football and basketball already bring in lots of money, leaving room for athletes to get paid from the profit that is made.

The cons that are included in the debate of paying college athletes are there is no difference in salaries and scholarships, financial awareness can become nonexistent, and responsibility is gone. If one were to compare the numbers of earning a salary and a scholarship for college athletes, there is only a few hundred dollar difference. This makes the salary aspect of paying athletes almost pointless. Also if given that much money, college athletes are more likely to become less financially aware. As well as being athletes, they are also college students. College students aren’t always financially aware with their money and by having a large amount this unawareness increases. Also by paying for the athletes’ college tuitions, they aren’t learning how to take care of their own expenses, they are just being handed the money.

This article isn’t the most clear as to which side the author is on. This article is more informational rather than opinionated. Even though there is no opinion to this article, in some cases it’s better for an article to be informational rather than bias. This is a way for readers to form their own opinion on the subject with the provided information rather than to get lectured about an author’s opinion on a subject.

In the YouTube video provided by CNN “Crossfire: Should college athletes be paid?” there are two ethical people debating. Kareem Abdul Jabbar believes that college athletes should be paid and Christine Brennan believes college athletes should not be paid. Christine Brennan believes that it wouldn’t be fair if only the highest paying salary sports got paid. For example, football and men’s basketball. Since the salaries made would only be benefitting the college football and college basketball players, people wonder about the other college sports. If college football and basketball players are being paid, so would softball, baseball, lacrosse players, and so on. This is a big reason as to why people don’t think college athletes should be paid, because it doesn’t account for all college athletes.

Kareem Abdul Jabbar is more worried about when the athletes get injured. It has been seen many times when a college athlete gets injured, gets their scholarship taken away, is then not able to play their sport anymore because of the injury and is left with not only academic bills to pay but also medical bills. Most of the time both of these bills range in the five digit numbers. This is a lot for one family to pay without any help. Kareem believes this is unfair to not only the athlete, but also the athlete’s family.

In the twelve minute YouTube video, Kareem doesn’t get much time to talk because Christine is making her point almost the whole time. This gives some insight on CNN’s point of view on the debate. By having Christine talk almost the whole time in the video, it seems clear that the opinion is college athletes shouldn’t get paid. Even though this seems that it’s more of an informational conversation and not meant to be an opinionated video, it seems to have come out biased.

Throughout reading these articles, it is clear that this debate has been going on for awhile now and isn’t going to stop and be resolved anytime soon. If athletes do end up getting paid, the other side will be upset. However, if athletes don’t get paid, many more people will be upset. The articles that were biased and believed that athletes should get paid made it very clear. The ones that didn’t make the opinion clear were the informational ones. The article that provided the pros and cons seems to truly be more informational opposed to the CNN video. The CNN video may have seemed informational at first, but looking further into the video, CNN is more bias towards college athletes not getting paid.

This rising debate has brought much information for people to form their own opinions. The main questions that are brought up when speaking about this topic are education or exploitation?, what are the benefits to athletes being paid?, and on the flip side, what are the consequences of athletes being paid? It seems as though there are more benefits, which is why the NCAA has started the process of paying college athletes through scholarships. People are entitled to their own opinions, however, their opinion isn’t always the right opinion.