BF2S Forums Should college athletes be allows to unionize?

Over at reddit, someone did some math regarding tuition to Michigan State University. The post was then mentioned in an article in the Atlantic titled The Mythology of Working your way through college

A credit hour at MSU in 1979 was $24.50. Adjusted for inflation is $79.23. In 2014, a credit hour is $428.75.

The minimum wage in 1979 was $2.90, you would have to work 8.44 hours for one credit. Today at 7.25 minimum wage you would have to work 59.13 hours for one credit. For 12 credits in 1979 you'd have to work 12.66 work days, essentially one 2 week pay check.
Today you would have to work 88.7 work days @ min wage, which is 17.74 weeks or 8.87 two week pay checks.

Fall semester enrollment in 1979 was 36909. Fall semester enrollment in 2013 was 49300. An increase but not a huge one.

reddit wrote:

In 1998-99 (the earliest year I could quickly find data), state funds made up 52%[1] of the general fund. In 2012-13, it was 14%[2] .

I always suspected the student loan system isn't the cause of rising tuition. Especially since the student loan system has been around since the 1950's. Lack of state funding is probably why tuition has gone up so much.

Just hours after the president of the University of Missouri system resigned on Monday, the chancellor of the university announced he also was stepping down amid a controversy over race.

Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin told reporters that he would transition to a new role advancing research, starting January 1.

Loftin praised the efforts of graduate student Jonathan Butler, who ended his hunger strike earlier in the day. Butler had stopped eating last week, demanding the removal of university system President Tim Wolfe.
...
Wolfe's resignation came after football players, both black and white, threatened -- with their coach's support -- not to practice or play again until Butler ended his strike.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/09/us/missou … index.html
The football team not playing would have cost the school a million dollars per game.

This is fascinating. Usually when workers consider to go on strike there is a loss of income to dissuade them from doing so. But the student athletes are compensated only with a scholarship. The school could revoke it but they would still be out millions of dollars in lost games while they rebuild the entire team. And that was enough to get multiple high ranking admins to resign. It will be interesting to see if more team strikes will happen coming forward since the cat is out of the bag regarding how much power the student athletes have over the school's finances.

He should be arrested for even bothering to use yik yak. What a terrible platform.