Running head: IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES Is Education Valuable to College Athletes
Carmen Harris
Keiser University 1 IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES 2 Thesis College athletes are the most valued assets in the American colleges. They always have the
biggest privilege one could ever want, a free education, not forgetting that it is at this stage that
the students have already started their rookie stage of professional sports. So, whether education
is at all a privilege to college athletes, then I for one don’t think so. Why? We are about to find
out. IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES 3 Introduction
Over the years, the NCAA has been trying to convince the other students and the
stakeholder’s in the education sector that college athletes benefit from their degrees, but that is
contrary to what evidence suggests. The NCAA itself has been raking in millions of dollars, tax
free money off the work of these college athletes, so one may understand why they are being so
overprotective of their ‘source of income’. Majority of Americans believe that the college
athletes shouldn’t be paid because of what’s it worth, they are already learning free and therefore,
it won’t be fair if after such a privilege you still want to pay the for what they are representing
the college for, sports.
Even so, the NCAA still agrees with the rest of the Americans that a degree is not only
enough for the students for what they do but also, they have golden ticket to a better post-college
life compared to most of their colleagues. Athletes with college degrees earn roughly around one
million more over their lifetime compared to their fellow compatriots who don’t have it, but hey
look at these athletes, do they seem to greet not having degrees? Exactly, I didn’t think so too. A college degree isn’t always worth what the NCAA claims, at least not to most athletes.
It’s not priceless, but it’s not worth its tuition sticker. For some, it’s even worth little more than
the paper it is printed on and it is that perspective that makes the student athletes signs lucrative
partnerships with football and basketball teams.
Statistically, most universities or colleges have like three percent of their student’s
population a student athletes, according to the NCAA. Each of these student is always having
certain requirement of him/her by the association, which consist of balancing their studies and
athletic program as well. It may sound like an easy task but it’s not always easy considering the IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES 4 kind of pressure that the athletes always have from their schools. The school official’s kind of
give them extra help in just to make sure that their academic as well as financial requirements are
met, which is quite unfair considering the fact that the other students also have their
commitments in their life but they but they don’t get this special treatment. Therefore, in this
peer reaction, we shall discuss at how student athletes enjoy certain privileges that non-student
athletes don’t and how academics performances come second to being an athlete throughout
college. IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES 5 Being a college athlete comes with a lot of strings attached. One would think that it’s just
being a student who is involved in both obtaining a college degree and playing sports at the same
time, but it is quite deeper than that. Student athletes are given a strict schedule which involves
satisfying both the school academic board, even though they might have gone to college on
sports scholarship, sports department as well as the NCAA, whose rules for the athletes are very
straight forward. “The student-athlete must meet academic standards through their tenure on
campus to remain eligible to participate in intercollegiate athletics and create academic standards
for each division’s goals.’ But all in all, it’s clear the rules that the athletes’ academic
performances are not important as long as it bares the minimum requirements to maintain their
athletic status.
To maintain their performances, they must adhere by certain rules that are, attending
practices, participating in mandatory workouts and attend/play games whether home or away and
if they don’t attend the practice, they are not eligible to play any game. That applies to even if a
student missed out because he/she was working on their academic’s commitments. In addition to
that, these athletes must be a competive part of the team, because without being part of the team
you are as good as useless and could end up being just a mere student.
Different colleges have different sports have their own ways of maintaining their athletes’
fitness and ensure that they are on top of their game, because every college are always after
reputation not only in academics but in sports which ironically is what popularizes a college.
College athletes are kind of busy people as a lot is expected of them both on and off season as
they are being held to a high standard in their sport.
Now one might ask; Where do these athletes get the time to study? Because it seems like
they are in sports academy rather than college. Well, the school always tries to help as much as IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES 6 possible. First, the college athletes are given a privilege of receiving a student athlete orientation
when arriving in college, which applies to those student that are already signed up for a sport. In
this orientation, they are counseled on how to make their schedule around their sports along with
counseling from the school, some student senior athletes on the classes they are to take; as they
can get teacher who are best in accommodating athletic schedules and the kind of workload they
give. For that matter, student athletes have an upper hand when it comes to class selection as
well as passing them and all efforts are always put to ensure that this happens including extra
tuition for the college athletes.
Some of the factors that even make college athletes not see the value of the education are
the fact that they are being favored more than their non-athletic colleagues. An example of how
important athletes are to the colleges such that they can go to an extra mile to make sure that they
remain students in their colleges is the academic scandal that The University of North Carolina
was investigated for. Despite the reputation the college had, it all got tarnished and at the heart
of it all was the athletic department. The student athletes were being allowed to sit for paper
exams just so they could keep their grade point average up to the NCAA standards.
USA Today once featured an article on how much money college coaches make and after
reading that article, I understood why the college athletes are always guided to take up certain
specific classes and why they have a lot of privileges. So, it is easy to say that without the
coaches being behind the students’ academic performance, the college athletes feel like
academics wasn’t and is not for them as long as they excel in their sport.
Therefore, across all this discussion, we have looked at the privileges that college athletes
have and se see that it is because of all the pampering they are given that makes them feel kind of
special such that they end up forgetting that even if it the sport that got them to college, they can IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES 7 still kill two birds with one stone, get quality education as well as develop your talent. But
unless the mindset of their academic advisors and coaching stuff changes, then college education
would never be valuable to college athletes. After all, student athletes are not just athletes, they
are also students. IS EDUCATION VALUABLE TO COLLEGE ATHLETES 8 References
Alesia, Mark. (2008). “Tailor Treatment to Meet Athletes’ Needs.” Clinical Psychiatry
News “Bonuses pay coaches for wins. Players’ education? Not so much.” 19 Apr 2016. USA
Today n. d. Leal, Fein. Dec. 2015. Web. Apr. 2016. “More Students Are ‘College Ready’ but
Crowded Campuses Make It Harder to Get into CSU.” Edsource. N.p., Wolff, Alexander, and Ted Keith. (2015). “Game Changer.”

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