When looking at the different sides of the college-athlete getting paid or not , I have never considered the point of view of the non-athletic student. One of the driving thoughts of this topic is that coaches and athletic directors make money off of the play of these athletes but athletes do not see a penny of it. Some believe that since it is the athletes “performing” they should receive something for it while others believe that scholarships are the compensation supplied to the athletes from the university. What about the students who are attending colleges and not playing any sports, but are expected to pay for the athletic programs at their school through part of their tuition fees? In the article, “Students Paid the Majority of UC Davis’ 2018-2019 Athletic Budget,” writer Graschelle Farinas Hipolito discusses a very sensitive topic, which I find interesting when thinking about the “Pay to Play” debate. When looking for articles about college athletes getting paid, my eyes immediately stopped at this article written by Hipolito. How could it not? I am a student athlete for the UC Davis baseball team, who is here on an athletic “scholarship.” No wonder academic students have such an issue with the whole athletic thing, just from the title of this article! Of course, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to read this article.
Hipolito begins by stating “students at UC Davis directly fund athletics. For 2018-2019, the NCAA reported that student fees made up $23.5 million, or about 57%, of UC Davis’ athletics budget.” Intercollegiate Athletics (ICA) at UC Davis receives student funding through student fees. When I looked on the UC Davis webpage there was a section that showed the tuition and fees “breakdown.” There are many lists of fees that a student is expected to pay and one of them is Student Services Maintenance Fee/Student Activities and Services Initiative Fee that includes 25 Division 1 Varsity Sports teams, 39 Club sports and 29 Intramural programs. This is not something that just UC Davis does. Many other Big West schools operate with similar percentages of money from student fees going towards funding athletics, so UC Davis is not doing something that is not happening in other colleges. These fees increased when UC Davis decided to move to Division I athletics. Prior to this they were competing in the NCAA Division II and supporters of moving to Division I athletics pushed forward to see this change happen. Well it did. Following the approval of the 2003 Campus Expansion Initiative, the 2004-2005 UC Davis sports teams competed in Division I schedules. This change could only be possible with the increase in student fees to help fund UC Davis athletics.
Furthermore, UC Davis does not have athletic programs that can generate enough revenue to support their teams, as do many others. According to Justin Wann of Lincoln Journal Star, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, one of fewer than two dozen to turn a profit while charging no student subsidy for sports, which also receives millions annually from its athletic department. Because so few athletic departments operate in the black, directly paying athletes – the model used in professional sports – is impossible at the college level. This shows that UC Davis isn’t the only school that relies on student fees to help fund athletics. There are 347 Division I athletic programs in the United States and there are only fewer than 24 that don’t need student support to make a profit. I am leaning more towards what the author is saying about it being impossible for the universities to directly pay their athletes. The only way a school like UC Davis can have Division I athletic programs is through student fees and outside donations.
I think that, for most schools, money received from student fees would better serve as ways to upgrade existing facilities or to fund sports programs that might be underfunded. If people became really serious about allowing athletes to be paid, there would need to be a different solution.
I have been around sports and been part of athletic teams my entire life. I can see how students who come to UC Davis, who are not in support of athletics, have a hard time with these added costs to an already high tuition cost. UC Davis has always been and always will be a high academic college. Having Division I athletes come to UC Davis, in my opinion, will only enhance the college experience for everyone who attends. Sports go beyond just shooting a ball into a hoop. Being part of athletics has brought a lot to my life and has been a large part of who I am. Just being a good athlete was not my “free” ticket into UC Davis. I had to be accepted through admissions just like any other student. I had to prove through my academic success, that I was worthy academically to attend UC Davis and playing baseball was just an added bonus. Again, it is not free for me to attend. I have to pay quite a bit of money to attend here, even with a partial scholarship. I am paying those same fees literally out of my pocket that make Division I athletics possible at Davis.
In conclusion, this fact that UC Davis students financially support the athletics at Davis is not something just Davis students pay. It is very common with the many extra fees the tuition has embedded in it at many colleges. This article brought to light for me how the opposers of student-athletes getting paid to play have some valid arguments as to why they feel it is not ok. Unlike I previously thought, there are only a few athletic programs in the country that make enough money to possibly be able to afford to pay their athletes. So how would this work for universities like Davis that rely on students fees to run their athletic programs? Where would this money come from? This issue is not easily solved but through the many discussions it is causing, there has to be some equal ground that everyone can stand on.
Should College Athletes Be Allowed to Get Paid? 