Yes and no. Some, not all, are given full or partial scholarships. And of those that are given full scholarships, many have a very difficult time balancing their studies and their athletics. Athletes are generally limited in which majors they can choose due to study time requirements and class, practice time conflicts.

I once inadvertently enrolled in a "business calculus" class that was apparently hand selected by the football coaches. Almost the entire class was the football team. We barely got through the first 5 chapters of the book and that was the easiest A I ever got.

So while the free education and room and board have some value, they don't have nearly as much as people think. I have known student athletes that quit playing and got a full time job just so they could afford to pay their own way and have time for classes.

The average cost of 1 year of University is approx. 35k a year for private colleges according to collegedata.com. The average salary of 1 first year NBA player is 3 million. The lowest paid NBA player makes approx 500k. That doesn't sound like a "free" education to me. Players would be better off going straight to the NBA and going to college later, if they were still inclined.

The NBA tries to educate college players or prospects to focus on their education as much as possible. I think the numbers are that even if you're a Div 1 college player, you only have a 6% chance of being drafted to the NBA.

yeah, so why wouldn't you try joining the NBA first, then go to college to actually study when you don't get in?

Or forgoing college and play professionally in another country.

a tiny tiny sliver of college athletes will play professionally,

a good way to think about it, is that college athletics is sort of communist society in action where the future professionals athletes subsidize benefits for the athletes that won't be future professionals.

Relative to most minor league athletes or aspiring Olympians,

35K isn't a bad salary.

In theory they get a free education, but in reality the huge majority of a student-athlete's focus is on sports (at least football and basketball). Just look at the majors for athletes on the teams - almost never anything too difficult.

There are also plenty of examples of "classes" that athletes have taken in the news, i.e. University of North Carolina, and more

If they aren't interested in academics they don't belong in college.

This is backwards. The system is set up to make it impossible for players to both be successful students and successful athletes -- they're expected to spend most of their time on sport. That that's the case is absurd, but placing the onus on the students to rectify the situation bizarre; they have the least power of anyone involved. The onus should be on the schools.

Universities' principal missions should be pedagogy and research. If college sports as they now exist require hampering students' ability to learn (or, I suppose, do research), having those sports teams and operating them the way they do is in conflict with what should be their mission, and they should stop having sports teams.

The NCAA is a cartel. The absurdity is that Congress won't do anything about it. Of course that would irreparably damage football and the extra four years professional wannabes need to bulk up on HGH and whatever steroids they can sneak past the test regime.

but if college ball is the path to the pros... look at Basketball and Football vs. Hockey. Hockey has a well established Junior/Major Junior feeder system. NBA/NFL benefit from an unpaid sorting mechanism via the NCAA.

It isn't college's responsibility to serve as a farm league for professional sports. Particularly those with money to fund their own.