Paying College Athletes: A Happy Middle Ground?

Hear me out, why can't this work.

1) Schools can offer recruits scholarships, no different from the ones offered today, with the stipulation that the school must honor the full length of the scholarship so long as academic requirements are met.

2) A player can choose to forego scholarship eligibility and enter into salary negotiations with the school, if they think their athletic abilities justify something greater than the scholarship's monetary amount. In turn, the university would retain the right to cut the player provided there are not contractual barriers.

This way, you would have an incentive for non-blue chip recruits to just accept the scholarship. After all, if there is little hope that they can make it to the pros, having your college guaranteed would be more valuable to the player.

For blue chip recruits, they can risk more because of their greater probability of making it to the pros. They can risk it because they will probably not attend the full length of a scholarship anyway. The school can risk it because they would retain the right to cut the player should they not live up to the monetary worth of their athletic talent.