As you sit back to enjoy your favorite beverage in your living room to watch your favorite college team, or even perhaps your alma mater, play their season openers, I thought I’d give you something to consider.

Some of those kids, in school on a free scholarship, are making more money than most of us, through the NIL system in college since 2021. NIL stands for “name, image, and likeness.” It came to pass because of a California law, called the Fair Pay to Play Act in 2019, unleashing Pandora’s Box when it came to paying college students.

Because of that law, the NCAA decided to allow athletes to be paid legally for their sponsorship. This meant sponsors could begin throwing legal endorsement money at college players to market their products. Advertisers rushed to pay athletes hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In my mind, the most egregious part of this deal, the students don’t have to pay the school back for the free education…they mostly ignored. Don’t feel sorry for the schools either as they are certainly not harmed during this process. Any university worth its salt is sitting on billion dollar endowments and the ability to increase tuition at will, which they are doing at alarming rates. Supposedly, schools are not supposed to use the NIL money as a recruiting tool, should you want to believe that horse hockey.

This is particularly bothersome as our part-time president keeps looking under rocks for ways to cancel college debt for freeloaders in exchange for their Democrat votes. Never mind that the Supreme Court keeps telling him he can’t do that. All this does is transfer the debt from the deadbeat college student to the American taxpayer.

The student debt price tag to us tax-paying schmucks stands at 1.77 trillion dollars currently. So far, we’ve paid $138 billion to relieve deadbeats of their debt.  

The average NIL endorsement money per student is estimated at $1,300, which pales in comparison to some of the deals others got, either by their ability, last name, or both. All students getting endorsements are not reporting it, so the numbers are skewed somewhat. It is known though the money is growing exponentially.

Last year, the highest paid college student in terms of endorsements was Bronny James, the son of current NBA player LeBron James. He got $5.6 million to toss basketballs in a hoop before signing with the Los Angeles Lakers. 

Quinn Ewers is on the current list of highest paid. He’s the starting quarterback for the Texas Longhorns. Quinn is getting endorsements of $1.9 million to chuck the football around Texas Memorial Stadium. Would you believe his backup, Arch Manning, is paid more? The grandson of NFL quarterback Archie Manning, and nephew to both Payton and Eli Manning, his NIL endorsement amounts to $2.8 million.

Former football player Deion Sanders, who coaches the Colorado Buffalo’s has two sons on his team, Shiloh and Shedeur. Shiloh, a safety. is the 18^th highest paid college athlete in NIL endorsements at $910,000. His younger brother makes $4 million dollars for deals with companies like Gatorade, Beats, and (Tom) Brady.

Bear fans might want to know that their new quarterback, Caleb Williams got paid $2.7 million to showcase his talents at USC.  (This is only important in that Bear fans are sure Williams will take them to the Super Bowl this year. Yawn) And America’s darling, Caitlin Clarke made $3.1 million “toiling” for the Iowa women’s basketball team.

If there ever was a case for that kind of money being paid to a college student, it might be Cailin. That’s not saying I believe they should be getting those kinds of endorsement deals, but lets face it, women’s college basketball had all the allure of a dead skunk on the road until Caitlin came along. Because of her court abilities, and perhaps her pigment, she single-handedly shoved women’s college basketball into America’s homes.

Back to Mr. Sanders though. One of the first things Shedeur did with his money was to go out and buy a Rolls Royce. After all, every 22-year-old kid in college needs a Rolls Royce to tool around. Even his father, a showman himself, didn’t agree with his son’s purchase.

Sadly, there are too many people that will pay money for something simply because an athlete claims to use the product, which in turn creates this market. In a sane world, nobody would buy a product based solely on the word of a celebrity, but that’s a rant for another day.