US colleges challenged over failure to pay sports stars fairly

The historical concept has always been that student athletes are students first, and that their athletic skills earn them a paid-for place at an institution that they might not otherwise be in a financial position to attend. This suggestion appears to propose that they cease being students and become professional athletes (something the best of them go on to do, certainly the NFL draws the majority of its recruits from college football programmes) instead. Many students 'work their way' through college, so you could argue that it's the equivalent of waiting tables, and that student athletes should be paid the going rate for the 'job' of playing sport for their university, rather than being given a 'full ride' scholarship (that is, room & board as well as tuition). You'd have to make sure that athletic wages reached an appropriate level to pay all the costs of attending their institution, of course.

"The historical concept has always been that student athletes are students first, and that their athletic skills earn them a paid-for place at an institution that they might not otherwise be in a financial position to attend." Seems if this: "Some, such as reading teacher Mary Willingham, went even further: she left her job at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after suffering “retaliation” for publishing data in 2014 on 183 of the university’s athletes that showed that most could read at no better than eighth-grade level." is correct a lot are being enabled to attend that apart from their 'sport' wouldn't make the grade to attend in the first place... All part of the greater panem et circenses distraction of the masses, thankfully our thick as ---- spherical bladder kickers in the UK have 'apprenticeship' scheme's.

The study was flawed in it only tested student athletes. Would be interesting if it compared reading level to other groups of students e.g. international, engineers, English majors etc. Should also include faculty. Would have been interesting if the reading level of the athletes was higher than some of the other groups. Would let you know if the testing was valid.