Less student, more athlete?
Analyzing the issue from another perspective lends more support to the need to pay student-athletes: the schedule. College athletes have their daily schedule full of obligations to the sport they signed a scholarship offer for. There are many documented examples of athletes that are unable to major in their desired programs simply because the class schedule does not match the athletic one. There are examples of students being forced to major in programs that provide the easiest schedule to fit the obligations of the sport.
Arian Foster is one of the more outspoken athletes regarding his experience as a player at Tennessee. He’s detailed it several times in the past, but his interview with Joe Rogan is probably one of the more concise retellings of it:
Add in the power coaches have, originally able to rescind a scholarship for any reason but now relegated to strictly on-field performance, and it leaves student-athletes focused purely on being their best in the sport and doing just enough to get by educationally. Now, the idea of a college athlete receiving a free education is another debatable point of contention for those against paying the student-athletes.
Just as Foster mentions above, free education is nowhere near the suggested quality it is praised to be. How can students truly enjoy the benefits of a full scholarship without being able to choose their majors, or without being able to enjoy the freedom of being in college? Honestly, settling for education is not exactly achieving the dream that colleges proport.