Investigation Discovers College Athletes are Paid!

It has been reported that Reggie Bush and his family may have benefitted financially from Bush’s status as a star college football player. The news has brought out the usual cries from reformers who believe college athletes deserve some fair compensation. The NCAA continues to resist, citing the amateurism of what it quaintly terms the “student athlete.”

I’m not sure how this debate should be resolved, but I am sure that both sides are wrong about their fundamental assumption. The truth is that college athletes are compensated, some extensively, right now.

Most high-level student athletes receive a full college scholarship. This is no small benefit; just ask the parent of any teenager. The typical athletic scholarship includes tuition, which at higher-end schools can easily surpass $25,000 per year. An athletic scholarship also includes free lodging, often in nicely-appointed athletes-only dorms, or otherwise in the university’s best dorms or apartments. The athletes get free meals, typically at the “highest level” of today’s college meal plans, which are a long way removed from the “mystery meat” specials of yesteryear. Free books, student fees, and the like add the little extras to the package. The total estimated cost to attend the better of the nation’s colleges now adds up to over $40,000 per year. That means a college scholarship is worth in the neighborhood of $160,000 over a college career, all tax free. That’s real value for an eighteen-year-old whose next best job would in most cases start near the minimum wage.

What else do our amateur student-athletes receive? A college degree, or at least a good chance at one, which degree (and presumably the knowledge behind it) translates into a lifetime of superior earnings. Particularly for those athletes whose academic potential is modest, a degree from a quality university represents a significant enhancement to expected earnings. These students also receive top-level coaching and training facilities, a consequential benefit to serious athletes. Finally, for those in one of the two major college sports, football and basketball, college athletics affords them a chance at exposure and stardom. Exposure on the playing field can give athletes some measure of local or national fame, resulting in immense college fun and improved post-college job prospects. More significantly, stardom gives them a tangible chance at the athlete’s biggest prize, a lucrative and glamorous post-college career in professional sports. That’s a valuable lottery ticket, one so prized that thousands of youth will train countless hours pursuing the dream. Schools that feed athletes to the pros advertise this substantial job benefit to potential recruits.

Do high-schoolers labor for years and compete strenuously against each other for what amount to unpaid servitudes, as both the NCAA and the reformers impliedly believe? Of course not. Athletes see the obvious compensatory elements of college sports, even if the NCAA and the reformers cannot. An athletic scholarship? It’s money.


Coming next: an examination of the dubious assertion that equity or fairness demands that the millions of dollars in revenue generated by these athletes should be in some part distributed to these athletes.

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