College Athletes Need to be Paid A$AP

As the excitement of March Madness has come to a close, the college basketball players involved have one thing on their mind. Do I decide to go pro or do I stay in school? Many of these athletes go through a difficult and emotional thought process leading up to their ultimate decision, but it seems as though every year we see more and more of these decisions resulting in them going pro. How do we solve this? Pay these athletes while they're in college. Plain and simple. Some of these athletes grew up into families with a lot of money and can afford to wait on the money awaiting them in the pros to earn their college degree. However, for many of these students, this is not the case. Most of these kids come from families that are in the working class and do not have the luxury of waiting four whole years to earn their degree. A prime case of this in display is Michael Carter-Williams, a star of the tournament on Syracuse. This poor kid's house caught on fire and burned to the ground, so it's safe to say his immediate decision to jump to the NBA after his sophomore season was pretty easy. He could have struggled in a part-time job to help out his mom while earning his degree or go pro and earn millions right away to buy his parents a nice new home. This is just one of many cases where the athlete's only logical choice is to go pro and make millions of dollars. If the NCAA actually opens it's eyes and sees the trend occurring and finally pays these athletes, I guarantee that the amount of kids going to the NBA would decrease exponentially. The current system without paying them is hurting the college game because we only get to see these players for one year and it is also discouraging them from earning their degree. This case is evident in other sports as well such as College Football, but their system requires the kid to stay in school for two years instead of only one year, so the issue is not as conspicuous. Honestly, I am currently a sophomore in college without yet earning a degree and seem to be enlightened enough to understand that this is an issue that needs to be resolved. I'm pretty sure that the guys in charge of the NCAA have gone through a higher education than myself, so I advise them to use that intelligence and pay these kids, unless they secretly jumped to the job early without a degree.