Paying Collegiate Athletes College athletics is a billion dollar corrupt organization. From the NCAA Division 1 rulebook, article 12 “Pay is the receipt of funds, awards or benefits not permitted by the governing legislation of the association for participation in athletics”. The rules state that in the current system athletes are not allowed to receive money from Universities but it is happening anyways. Since the paying of collegiate athletes is likely to continue even with the rules in place, financing should be allowed with controlled limits and guidelines to maintain equal distribution of money. The history of college sports shows the corruption within the national organization. Year after year universities find more ways to pay the athletes, under the table and boosters paying are the two most common. A booster is generally a highly wealthy man, who donates money to the school to help with funds. Some of the elite athletes are getting “paid with funds provided by boosters” (Russo) because the boosters paying does not relate to a direct pay from the school. While some get paid by boosters, other athletes are getting paid under the table. It sounds as it is, coaches are “handing them cash under the table” (Nocera) as for they do not believe they will attend their university unless some sort of cash is given extra. These actions of paying illegally have caused many high profile cases in the collegiate sporting world. The most notable of the cheating cases is the Southern Methodist University death penalty. At SMU not only “coaches were involved”, but “top school officials” (Russo) were affiliated with paying the athletes illegally. The famous SMU scandal is considered the worst one in college history, but a more recent one at Miami University challenges that. Miami University football players were involved in a “$930 million Ponzi scheme,” (Robinson) fraudulent investment operation. There are many different instances and ways coaches pay players to attend their University, and there are reasons from that to support why they should not be paid. Many people believe paying athletes would just cause more devious problems to linger on instead of resolving the current ones. Those opposed feel that the athletes are already getting enough money through the scholarship they are receiving and they frankly don’t deserve it. Mark Murphy, Director of Athletics at Northwestern University, said “these athletes currently receive scholarships in totals close to $200,000 over four years” (Meshefejian pg. 96). The opposition argues that this is an already very generous amount of money so why is more needed to be given. Another point they stress is that they are there for an education not athletics, the primary function of colleges is to “provide and education for students” not to “hire students for athletic contributions” (Meshefejian pg. 95). The opposition also believes that the players have not completely earned the money. The way people think is that every school is a multi-million dollar industry which really, only “30% of D1 football” and only “26 of D1 basketball” (Why student-athletes are not paid, par. 3) programs actually post a revenue to cover the expenses. The others are stating that not every school can afford to pay the athletes, and they are right. The less popular sports do not produce nearly any revenue for their school, so why should they get paid? Amateurism is what keeps the athletes from being paid and keeping sports as just a fun experience. The reason the “athletes themselves are not paid” is the keep the “NCAA from crossing the line between amateurism and professionalism” (Paying college athletes, par. 14). The NCAA is strictly an amateur only sporting association, and to pay athletes would be “violating their own rules of amateurism” (paying college athletes, par. 27). It is clear that the opposition to paying athletes is based on the reluctance that it will solve the problems. In contrast, paying