How might privatization connect to your topic?

Since the 1970’s, the entire college experience has begun to evolve from being publicly funded and oriented, to the heavily privatized system that we experience today.  Colleges have transformed from their original mindset of trying to help students to a higher education, to that of trying to solely earn a profit from them.  Over the past decades, students are the ones that have been negatively impacted by this change and for now there is no end in sight.  For many universities the first priority is public image and money, and that is where college athletics comes into play.  Universities put a high level of importance on their athletic programs and it is no secret why.  According to the New York Post, Northwestern University raised over 30 million dollars in 2013 for their football program alone.  Of this $30 million, not one dollar was seen by the players, the ones that make these programs possible in the first place.  The NCAA is currently exploiting college athletes, making millions of dollars off of them while they are not seeing a penny of what they earned for their schools.  Many people would argue that the students are getting a free education and clothing and a place to live while they are attending these schools but the reality is not the same for all college athletes.  Of course the best athletes are getting compensated with a full scholarship in most cases, but the majority of college athletes are not the best players on their teams.  Schools think that their athletes will get exposure and in turn will be able to gain a contract from a professional team in the future, but this will never happen for the vast majority of players.  These players work hard and give all they have for the school both physically and mentally and often times have nothing to show for it after their four years are over.  Schools are now considering athletes to be “athlete-students”, rather than “student-athletes” which is an extremely alarming problem (Wood).  Many people have recognized this change and a solution is needed to combat this problem from developing any further.  
An interesting solution that has the potential to fix the current problem would be to also privatize college athletics as a whole.  One might wonder how this is going to fix athletics if privatizing colleges in the first place caused such a problem for students.  With the privatization of college athletics, the NCAA would be dissolved and athletics would move to the public sector (Wood).  This would mean that athletes would be considered employees of the universities and in turn compensated financially for working for the school.  Athletes would no longer have to worry about keeping their amateur status and could focus on what they are there to do, play sports.  There is clearly a problem with how college athletes are currently being treated, and a solution must be found in order to restore balance and keep both sides pleased. 

Works Cited

Wood, Michael. "Privatizing NCAA Sport." Privatizing NCAA Sport. Slideshare, 5 Sept. 2012.

Web. 3 Mar. 2015. <http://www.slideshare.net/mwood13/privatizing-ncaa-sport>.