I believe they should be paid. We can absolutely argue over how much they should be paid, but I believe that college sports is labor intensive and should be compensated. We compensate actors and musicians for their mental labor, we can pay college athletes as well for their physical labor.

I don’t think the focus should simply be on the money. I do agree that is a problem, but I don’t think the solution to athletes being overpaid is to just stop paying them. Athleticism takes work and effort and time. People should be compensated for that. A lot of people are entertained and invested in college sports, they will watch it, therefore money is being made. The people playing should have a cut of the profit. We understand that when we pay actors for their labor in their projects, musicians for their songs and performances, writers for their hours of labor creating a story. We pay people for their mental work that we find enjoyable, we should also pay for athletes physically labor that people enjoy seeing.

Then your issue seems to be with scholarships and financial education assistance, rather than college athletes being paid for what they actually do. I understand why financial assistance and scholarships make people uncomfortable. It doesn’t feel nice to see other people just ‘get money’ when you had to struggle to earn your own money. That is a whole discussion in and of itself, but that doesn’t fully address the topic at hand. College athletes are performing a public service and putting in labor, they work to stay on that team and to perform well at games to ensure victory for their team. Irregardless of how they got they there, they are still doing their job and should be reasonably compensated for that. Same as an actor would be who is in a production.