Reflecting on the shame of college sports: Should NCAA Div 1 Basketball and Football players get paid?

For several years there has been a debate about whether or not college athletes should be paid for playing. There are many parts to both sides of the debate and a lack of agreement is what is keeping it from reaching a solution. Those who are for paying these division one athletes say that the institutions that have collegiate sports are making millions of dollars in profits from these athletes and the games being televised. Journalist Taylor Branch wrote in their article "The Shame of College Sports" that "football teams like Texas, Georgia, Florida, Michigan, and Penn State make between $40 million-$80 million in profits a year, even after paying coaches multimillion dollar salaries" (Branch 2011:1). In addition these athletes that play in college are coming here on scholarship and therefore spending their entire time playing sports. This leaves no time to get a job and make an income to cover extra things the university doesn't cover. These athletes give all their time to their sport and in turn makes the university millions of dollars while they receive none. Many of these kids come from low income areas and don't get the kind of money that other students who go to the school receives. Therefore some feel that players receiving a small salary for the work and commitment they give is the appropriate measure to take.
On the flip side is the argument that college athletes should not get paid. To begin with paying college athletes takes it from being a more mature sport to the same as professional sports. In addition many feel that they don't need extra money in order to play sports since the university is already covering their tuition, board, books, and food. Since many are here on scholarship they are already taken care of by the university. Also, there is already so much money being spent on college sports that paying athletes an additional salary on top would cost too much money that the universities doesn't have. Today universities already close early to accommodate games, those who should be ineligible to play still sneak by with low grades and overall academics is not the most important things for these athletes. Therefore, if we added a salary on top of things, overall focus around education would decline even more.
Although I have never really thought about this debate, after thinking about it I don't think that college athletes should be paid. A large part of what makes college sports so enjoyable to watch is that players aren't getting paid to work hard and you can tell the difference in they way they play in comparison to professional sports. Also, college athletes have never been paid before so to now start paying them would take away from the tradition of college sports and completely change the way they are. I don't feel that universities and coaches should profit as much as they do from these athletes but I feel that the solution is restructuring the way universities, coaches, networks, and sponsors work with college athletes instead of throwing out more money to create a salary for these athletes.