Everyone has an opinion on this subject and I do as well and I believe that college athletes deserve to get paid and it’s unfair to ask someone to do the same thing an older version of themselves do every day for free. As stated in an article about college athletes not deserving to get paid “A free degree (especially from a prestigious university) in this economic climate is a godsend.” “God send”? are they joking? ok yeah I get it education before everything and it always comes first and blah blah blah. But when is the last time you have seen a truly great athlete finish all four years and walk across that stage with a diploma? It just doesn’t happen anymore because they have the option to make their lives so much better with a chance to have all the money they deserve and want. So if a company that controls these athletes can make billions can’t send some to these kids who work their hearts out to make their business successful it is tragic and absolutely insane. These companies used these kids likeness and talent to create a business and try to use the excuses about free education and place to live as a reason not to pay them for putting in more than a full time job worth of hours. I know I keep repeating myself when I talk about this but I am honestly baffled at the fact that they expect so much but give so little back to what is creating this major success of a business. With all the endorsements from the large brands such as Nike and Adidas you cannot figure some way to share even the smallest amount to the largest rewarding programs at these universities. I’m not saying that every college athlete has to make lots of money. It should be based off of the revenue that their sports bring in because that’s only fair. I’m also not saying that free “education” isn’t something to be happy about but that should just be figured in to what each player gets paid per year. I also believe that there should not be control on if these athletes want to go out and get endorsements and make money by using their name and prestigious level of play, let them go make the money that means that the NCAA would have to pay them less than they would if they didn’t let them do this. All in all its just unfair to expect these students to just be happy with the bare minimum if people who are doing the same thing just 4 years older are making millions off of it. They make it seem so hard. I get it the NCAA is stingy and greedy and want to make the public think that it’s so hard to do this so they can control every aspect of these players. I just wish these people could see it from the prospective of the athletes and what they deal with week to week putting themselves out there for the world to see to only be told no you’re not worth anything more than some books and a seat in a class room. In this day and age everything is so expensive and it’s hard to pay for what you need even on a minimum wage paycheck. These athletes are not allowed to get a job and work due to the time that it takes to go to practice and go travel to the games and everything else that comes along with it. I know people who work for minimum wage and still can’t pay for their daily life so I can’t even think about how hard it is for a student athlete that not only doesn’t have the time to make extra money but is not even allowed to. This is a subject that is close to the heart and connects to me as a prior student athlete I know what time is takes and how much effort is put in. I know in some way such a large business can figure out how to provide these kids with what they need and even make an incredible profit off of it still. At some point I do believe this will change but it is going to be a long hard fought battle but it will come back around over and over again and I hope the right thing will be done for these athletes.