Yes, college athletes do get paid, and in more ways than at any point in the history of American college sports. Since 2021 they have been allowed to earn money from their name, image, and likeness. Since July 2025 their schools have been allowed to pay them directly out of athletic revenue. On top of that, athletes can still receive scholarships, cost-of-attendance stipends, academic bonuses, and wages from ordinary jobs. How much a particular athlete makes depends on the sport, the visibility of the player, and the resources of the program.
NIL Deals
Name, image, and likeness deals are the most visible source of athlete income. The NCAA adopted an interim policy in July 2021 that let athletes sign commercial contracts for the first time.1NCAA.org. NCAA Adopts Interim Name, Image and Likeness Policy Those contracts cover endorsements, sponsored social media posts, personal appearances, merchandise lines, and other promotional work.
The money ranges widely. A football or basketball star at a major program can earn six or seven figures a year. An athlete in a less-watched sport might pick up a few hundred dollars for a social media post or a local endorsement. Much of the money flows through “collectives,” independent booster-funded groups that pool donations and route NIL opportunities to athletes at a specific school. Collectives sit outside the university but shape recruiting and roster retention in a serious way.
Division I athletes have to report any third-party NIL contract worth $600 or more to the NCAA’s clearinghouse. Missing the disclosure window can get an athlete declared ineligible until the deal is properly logged.
Direct Pay From Schools Under the House Settlement
A federal court gave final approval to the House v. NCAA settlement on June 6, 2025. Under that 10-year agreement, Division I schools that opted in can pay athletes directly out of athletic revenue, starting July 1, 2025. The initial cap for the 2025–26 academic year sits at roughly $20.5 million per school, calculated as 22.5 percent of the Power Five conferences’ average athletic revenue. The cap rises by about 4 percent a year, pushing the 2026–27 ceiling near $21.3 million.
These revenue-sharing payments are separate from scholarships and other existing benefits, which generally don’t count against the cap. Each school decides internally how to divide the money across its rosters, and a new College Sports Commission enforces the limit. Not every Division I program opted in, so whether an athlete has access to this pay depends on where they play. The pool is also subject to Title IX, meaning schools can’t concentrate payments in football or men’s basketball without facing legal risk.
Scholarships and Stipends
The oldest form of athlete compensation is still the athletic scholarship, formally a “grant-in-aid.” A full scholarship covers tuition and mandatory fees, room and board, and required course books.2NCAA.org. Scholarships At an expensive private university, a full ride can be worth more than $60,000 a year.
Not every athlete gets a full ride. Many sports use an equivalency model that splits a limited scholarship pool across the roster, so a partial scholarship might cover 25 or 50 percent of costs. Renewal usually requires at least a 2.0 GPA, though individual schools can set the bar higher. A school can reduce or cancel the award if the athlete falls below academic standards or violates team rules.
On top of the scholarship, schools pay a cash stipend that closes the gap between the scholarship and the full federal “cost of attendance” figure.3Federal Student Aid Partners. Cost of Attendance (Budget) The stipend covers transportation, personal expenses, and supplies that the scholarship itself doesn’t reach. The amount varies by school and is usually paid monthly or by semester, straight to the athlete.
Academic Achievement Bonuses
Schools can also pay athletes cash bonuses for classroom performance. This became possible after the Supreme Court’s unanimous 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston, which struck down NCAA limits on education-related benefits as antitrust violations. The Court allowed the NCAA to keep capping cash academic awards, but only at a level no lower than the existing athletic-achievement cap, which was $5,980 a year at the time.4Supreme Court of the United States. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Alston (06/21/2021) Each school picks its own criteria, which have to be tied to educational progress — completing a semester above a certain GPA, earning a degree, or similar.
Regular Jobs
College athletes can hold ordinary jobs the same as any other student. That means campus dining halls, university offices, retail work, private lessons, or youth clinics. The pay has to be for actual work performed and has to reflect fair market value, which stops boosters from disguising payments as inflated wages for minimal work. Schools typically route employment through the compliance office.
Taxes on Athlete Income
Most of this money is taxable, and a lot of athletes are filing returns for the first time.
NIL earnings are treated as self-employment income. If you make at least $400 from NIL activity in a year, you have to file a return and pay self-employment tax, which covers Social Security and Medicare, on top of regular income tax.5Internal Revenue Service. Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) Income Nothing is withheld from NIL payments, so athletes earning real money usually need to send in quarterly estimated taxes to avoid an underpayment penalty. Revenue-sharing checks from a school are also taxable and may follow similar self-employment or independent-contractor treatment depending on how the school structures them.
Scholarships work differently. The portion that covers tuition, required fees, and required books is generally tax-free for a degree-seeking student. The portion that covers room and board — including the value of a meal plan and housing — counts as gross income.6Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 421, Scholarships, Fellowship Grants, and Other Grants Cost-of-attendance stipends are taxable to the extent they cover living expenses rather than tuition or required educational costs. A lot of athletes get surprised by this at tax time.
Pell Grants Are About to Change
Starting July 1, 2026, a provision in the budget reconciliation law known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” cuts off Pell Grant eligibility for any student whose non-federal grant aid, including athletic scholarships, equals or exceeds the full cost of attendance. In practice, every full-scholarship Division I athlete loses Pell access in the fall 2026 semester. The change hits lower-income athletes hardest, since Pell money has traditionally covered transportation, childcare, and other everyday costs the scholarship doesn’t reach. Athletes at schools in the revenue-sharing system — and at Division I schools that didn’t opt in — face the same cutoff if their total non-federal aid meets the cost-of-attendance threshold.
International Athletes Face Different Rules
Student-athletes on F-1 visas can’t treat NIL the way their American teammates can. Federal immigration law sharply restricts off-campus employment for F-1 students, and any compensated activity that looks like work can be classified as unauthorized employment. The Department of Homeland Security has said only that it continues to “assess the issue of F and M international student-athletes receiving compensation for the use of their name, image and likeness,” without issuing definitive guidance.
Immigration practitioners generally think truly passive income, like royalties from a video game or group merchandise deal, is more defensible because it comes from a property right rather than a labor relationship. NIL deals that require active services, such as appearances, sponsored posts, or performance bonuses, carry a much higher risk of being treated as unauthorized work. An F-1 athlete found to have worked without authorization can have their student record terminated with no grace period, lose all work eligibility, and be required to leave the country.7Study in the States (Department of Homeland Security). Terminate a Student Dependents on the same visa would lose status too. International athletes should talk to their school’s international student office and an immigration attorney before signing anything.
Are College Athletes Employees?
Whether athletes legally count as employees of their schools is still unsettled, and the answer matters. Employee status would bring minimum-wage protection, collective bargaining, workers’ compensation, and the rest of the employment-law framework. The National Labor Relations Board has taken the position that certain college athletes qualify as employees, and an NLRB regional director ruled that Dartmouth College basketball players are employees capable of unionizing. In a separate case, Johnson v. NCAA, the Third Circuit held that college athletes may be employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and that case is back before the district court.
No final nationwide rule has come out of any of this yet. If athletes are eventually classified as employees, today’s scholarships and stipends could turn into wages subject to payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and the full set of employment protections. Until then, pay in college sports runs through the channels above.