More Americans than not believe that college athletes should be allowed to be paid more than what it costs them to go to school, a new national study of nearly 4,000 people suggests.

 

Findings from the National Sports and Society Survey, sponsored byu SSI and led by researchers at The Ohio State University, suggest that 51 percent of adults agree that college athletes should have the ability to be paid above school costs, 41 percent disagree and 8 percent don’t know.

 

An analysis of the survey results, published this week in the Sociology of Sport Journal, found a variety of factors were linked to how Americans thought about the issue.

 

“We found that it was largely a story of race, ethnicity, views about discrimination in society and traditionalism,” said Chris Knoester, lead author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State.