Why Are Student Athletes Funding Your Future?: No More Excuses: Pay Me!

Scholarship shortfalls persist, leaving NCAA scholarship student-athletes to pay hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for additional educational expenses not covered by their current athletic scholarships. Meanwhile, NCAA campuses continue to generate money from the sale of apparel and other merchandise featuring star athletes. In this detailed study, Ernest Cutler explores the troubling history of money changing hands, with none of it going to student athletes who are for some reason considered amateurs that should not be eligible for payment. He also takes a careful look about what such a system says about academic values and educational institutions, as well as how the system contributes to infractions by student-athletes, coaches, and athletic administrators. This research study is not intended to disrespect the NCAA, but it does seek to serve as a tool to change problematic policies that infringe upon the rights of current, former, and future student athletes.