Yeah, that's not bad in principle, though a) I don't think it would work because too many kids would take the money and be gone the next year, and b) I would hate the idea of a team with their star player who doesn't even pretend to go to school. 

I would rather the NFL just drop the age limitation on being drafted.  Arian Foster's quote about his coach driving a Lexus while he (Arian) was broke really pisses me off.  The coach is a progessional, not an amateur.  Arian Foster at Tennessee was not a professional.  He was an amateur, learning how to be a professional.  Guess what - my professors in college had more money than I did too. 

I wish there was no limit on when kids could go pro.  You think you're a pro, college-aged Arian Foster?  Then go do it.  Then you can get paid all you want.  But if it doesn't work out, there will be no one with a Lexus willing to bring you Taco Bell when you're fucking broke. 

I had a similar idea. Maybe the best option is some combination of the two.

What if they just let players "major" in the sport that they are playing. Players that want to go to the NFL only can choose to focus solely on football, while players that have little chance of getting into the NFL can "dual major". They could then take the tuition that is paid to the school and give that to the players that choose football only as a salary. Living expenses and whatnot would still be paid for by the AD.

I guess my thought is that sports an degrees really do the same thing in a sense: they prepare the person for whatever job they want to pursue. Why should an individual have to pursue a degree that won't get them a job down the road if all they want to do is play football? I think most would agree that it would be a stupid life decision to focus on football only, but I think there are several degrees that many would agree are not great life decisions as well.

When Kevin McHale was GM of the Timberwolves, they got reamed by the NBA for making exactly that kind of under-the-table deal with a player -- I can't recall his name, think it was a guy who used to play at UM (NTUM) (no, the other NTUM) (meaning, Terrapins).  He skirted salaray-cap by having an under-the-table promise.  NBA somehow found out and suspended McHale, etc.

So it probably does happen in the pros, but at least the home office can really bring down the weight of God, er, Stern, er, same thing.

In reference to your second paragraph:  This is exactly my fear for paying players in college football.  You say it's "OK" to get paid for your autograph or jersey or to be the face of a car dealership, and what you just described happens.  Taking it a step further, let's say Alabama booster X pays for some big recruit, and that recruit can't see the field as a frosh and is looking like a bust.  So now that booster says forget it kid, I'm not paying for a scrub.  So now you have kids (and their families) dealing with boosters to get the money they were promised or you have kids transferring schools because of money.  Neither is good. 

As for the pros, I think the reason it happens less is because they're already making a ton of money, and only a few real top players would warrant that type of corruption.  A thousand bucks to a kid with nothing is a lot bigger of a deal than more millions to someone who already makes many millions.  And like I said - there are only a handful of players worth doing that for anyway. 

...like the NFL and NBA is that they are not as competitive as colleges are.  The NFL basically has a monopoly and team ownership collectively bargains with the athlete labor to establish the parameters in which they both profitably operate.  The college landscape, by comparison is completely wide open, a wild west type environment. 

Although some groupings of colleges (i.e., conferences) tend to work together and agree on things, there is clearly vast differences in the modus operandi between different conferences, let alone different schools.

That is a huge part of the reason that I argue that schools will never, ever start officially paying players.  The labor implications of that in such a wide open environment would be far too difficult to tackle and open up far too many headaches.  The status quo of the default student-athlete model may seem quaint but it is also vastly more effective.

They are currently being systematically underpaid thanks to cartel behavior that would be illegal if any organization other than the NCAA tried it. Why should their working conditions become worse rather than better? They are being denied what they have rightfully earned, and for no articulable reason aside from the greed of entrenched powers. This is why there are courts.