Myles Brand is president of the NCAA (2002-present). He was president of Indiana University (1994-2002) and Oregon (1989-94). He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester in 1967.

It's always the first or second question I get during question-and-answer sessions. Isn't it about time to pay student-athletes?

Mikki K. Harris/AJC (ENLARGE)

NCAA President Myles Brand says college athletics' mission is to prepare students for life.

Your Turn Do you agree with NCAA President Myles Brand that student athletes should not be paid?   Yes   No Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

NCAA , advocates debate paying student athletes Letters of support: Pro | Con What do you think?

The answer is, "No" and here are the arguments for and against.

The first argument is the capitalism point of view. College football and men's basketball have become big business with millions of dollars coming in, and the student-athletes should share in the wealth. Here are the problems with the argument.

Not all programs in those sports even in Division I make money; and where they do, the excess revenue helps offset the cost of other sports. Fewer than 20 schools in Division I last year had enough excess revenue from football and men's basketball to pay for everything else, and only six schools have been able to do so consistently over the last five years. When more than $1 billion goes each year to scholarships alone for student-athletes in Division I, revenue gets spread thin fast. It's easy to assume that when teams appear on television every week, there must be buckets of money just setting around. The truth is most of the buckets have holes in them.

So, this argument, the capitalism one, suggests that only football and men's basketball athletes should be paid (because only those sports make money) but only in those schools where there is money left over after all the bills are paid. If you have the good fortune to be recruited in football or men's basketball to one of the handful of schools that make money, you get paid. But all the other student-athletes in those sports — not to mention the student-athletes in all the other sports — don't get paid even though they work just as hard.

Let me know how you think that idea will fly.

The point is that it is not just the interest of those few student-athletes in those few sports that should be taken into account; it is also the interest of all the other student-athletes in all the sports that must be considered, too.

The second argument is the fairness one. Everyone else is making money from college sports — coaches, administrators, academic advisers, trainers, equipment managers, information folks — why shouldn't the student-athletes. This is the argument that angrily yells, "Student-athletes are the only amateurs left in amateur collegiate sports."

Here is big news. Student-athletes have always been the only amateurs in amateur collegiate sports. From nearly the beginning of college sports 150 years ago, there have been paid coaches, and then paid administrators, and then all the rest. They are professionals. Intercollegiate athletics is their job.

Playing sports is not the "job" of students. They are not professionals at playing sports. They are amateurs.

What is interesting to me is that you never hear the argument that student-athletes in other sports or those in Division III — where no scholarships are provided — should be paid. We're paying the coaches, administrators and everyone else in those sports. Why isn't that just as unfair?

What really bothers us and rubs wrong is that some intercollegiate programs and some coaches — those at high profile institutions or those that have been very successful — make more than we are comfortable with. It just doesn't seem fair that the blood, sweat and tears of student-athletes are used to make money for others. As a philosophy professor for 40 years, it never seemed fair to me that business professors make more than philosophers.

Here is the heart of the matter. Neither higher education nor intercollegiate athletics operate in a capitalistic environment. If they did, most wouldn't make it.

Although both try to generate as much revenue as possible to provide educational and co-curricular benefits to students, they aren't in it for the money. Neither are the students — or in the case of college sports, the student-athletes. There is a big difference between operating in a business-like manner to generate revenues and being a business. There is a big difference between being the best you can be and being a professional.

The "business" of higher education and intercollegiate athletics is to help every student and every student-athlete succeed academically and thereby position themselves to succeed in life.