# data[].attributes.body
New York Times Upfront

# data[].attributes.headline
Is it finally time to get rid of the SAT and ACT college admissions tests?

# data[].attributes.subject
Is it finally time to get rid of the SAT and ACT college admissions tests?

# data[].attributes.body
Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection

# data[].attributes.headline
NCAA Division I Institutions: Generated Revenue and Operating Expenses, Fiscal Year 2013

# data[].attributes.subject
NCAA Division I Institutions: Generated Revenue and Operating Expenses, Fiscal Year 2013

# data[].attributes.headline
 Number of SAT and ACT Test-Takers, 2014

# data[].attributes.subject
 Number of SAT and ACT Test-Takers, 2014

# data[].attributes.headline
Graduation Rates of NCAA Division I Student-Athletes, 2001-2014

# data[].attributes.subject
Graduation Rates of NCAA Division I Student-Athletes, 2001-2014

# data[].attributes.headline
The NCAA brings in $1 billion a year — here's why it refuses to pay its college athletes

# data[].attributes.subject
The NCAA brings in $1 billion a year — here's why it refuses to pay its college athletes

# data[].attributes.body
Business Insider

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The NCAA brought in $1 billion of revenue during the 2016-2017 school year - most of which was generated by the Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, also known as March Madness.

Regardless of how much money the NCAA makes, it refuses to pay college athletes.

NCAA athletes are also prohibited from profiting off of their name, image, or likeness.

The NCAA uses "amateurism" to justify these terms in courtrooms, but former athletes are pushing for a share of the revenue.

Narrator: In the 2016-2017 school year, NCAA revenue reached $1 billion. Many people have argued that the players who drive this revenue don't receive the true value that they bring to their schools.

John Oliver: There is nothing inherently wrong with a sporting tournament making huge amounts of money, but there is something slightly troubling about a billion-dollar sports enterprise where the athletes are not paid a penny.

Narrator: John has a point. So why is it that student-athletes aren't paid? Let's start by looking through recent lawsuits against the NCAA. In response to the release of EA Sports' popular NCAA video games, former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon filed a federal lawsuit against the NCAA over whether Division I men's basketball and football players should be compensated for the commercial use of their names, images, and likenesses.

After appeals, the final outcome was that even though the NCAA's amateurism rules are unlawful, the fact that it lets colleges compensate student-athletes with the cost of college attendance, the NCAA frees itself from antitrust violations. And in March 2019, there was a slight change to that ruling.

In the US District Court, Judge Claudia Wilken ruled to allow each conference and its member schools to provide additional education-related benefits without NCAA caps and prohibitions. Her ruling tethers payment to education, so instead of cash, student-athletes will be allowed to receive computers or scholarships for post-graduate degrees.

In each trial, the NCAA has argued that amateurism keeps it from becoming an anticompetitive trust. So what is amateurism?

In page four of the NCAA Division I handbook under the heading "The Principle of Amateurism," the NCAA declares student-athletes shall be amateurs in an intercollegiate sport, and their participation should be motivated primarily by education and by the physical, mental, and social benefits to be derived.

To clarify that, Oliver Luck, the NCAA's former executive vice president of regulatory affairs, said in a speech in 2015, "It would be a bad mistake to create campus employer-employee relationships with student-athletes." Paying college athletes "would distract in a very significant way from pursuing what they really need to pursue - an education... And we need to emphasize the value of that education."

But let's think about that for a second. Are student-athletes able to receive the full value of that education?

Richard Sherman: No, I don't think college athletes are given enough time to really take advantage of the free education that they're given.

Narrator: Former student-athletes argue that the time commitment of playing a college sport, especially at the Division I level, impedes their ability to take advantage of their educational opportunity.

Sherman: Show me how you're gonna get all your work done when after you get out at 7:30 or so you got a test the next day, you're dead tired from practice, and you still have to study just as hard as everybody else every day and get all of the same work done.

Narrator: In fact, CBS Sports published a study on the topic with data from the Pac-12, the league Sherman competed in while at Stanford. The study surveyed 409 Pac-12 student-athletes and found 54% of athletes say they don't have enough time to study for tests, 80% of athletes say they have missed a class for competition during the academic year, and overall, athletes spend 50 hours a week on athletics. And while student-athletes feel they have the resources at their disposal to succeed academically, they don't have the time to do so.

Reporter: The University of North Carolina today reeling from a blow, a really big blow, to its reputation, especially the integrity of its legendary sports program.

Narrator: The University of North Carolina even went as far as committing academic fraud for 18 years. Advisers enrolled students in paper classes, which were fake classes used to inflate student-athlete GPAs to keep them eligible to play. So in many cases, these student-athletes are not receiving the education they're promised, the cost of which is by law how they're compensated.

But beyond that, the cost of that education is lower than the revenue most big school athletic departments bring in. In 2014, the 10 schools that made the most money in college sports averaged revenue that was $132.5 million more than the average those schools spent on scholarships.

Skip Bayless: So you get a free ride at school, but you deserve so much more than that.

Stephen A. Smith: The NCAA has been allowed to be the flaming hypocrites that they are, getting away with the multitude of things that they have gotten away with in an effort to exploit these kids for years and years and years.

Colin Cowherd: It's time to now pay players.

Narrator: In her latest ruling, Judge Wilken denied a free market scholarship model, and the idea of paying student-athletes raises a lot of questions.

Scott Davis: There would be such a large disparity between some of the athletes, and it's no different than the pros where the best players are getting paid and lower players are not, even when you trickle down to other sports that are not making as much money or generating as much attention as football or basketball.

Bernard Muir: We have 36 sports, many of the sports you've just mentioned. We would have to kind of concentrate to a small number in order to pay student-athletes.

Davis: There would be less incentive to go to class because they would essentially have a job already if they were earning, like, their true value to the schools.

Narrator: Despite these arguments, some writers have devised plans to pay athletes the value they add to their schools. Deadspin published, "So what is the best plan for playing players? No plan at all," arguing to treat them like any other employee and that the free market is the best solution, similar to the proposal in Judge Wilken's court.

SB Nation suggests the NCAA adopts the Olympic model of amateurism in which the athletes are free to gain endorsement deals and sell autographs. And LZ Granderson has called for government intervention.

Granderson: It is way more complicated than just handing out checks, as well, and so I think Congress actually needs to get involved a lot more than what's happening right now.

Narrator: This issue is far from decided and likely won't be anytime soon. Let us know what you think in the comments. Do you believe college athletes deserve to be paid? If you do, what model do you think works best?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The NCAA brings in $1 billion a year - here's why it refuses to pay its college athletes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The NCAA brought in $1 billion of revenue during the 2016-2017 school year - most of which was generated by the Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, also known as March Madness. Regardless of how much money the NCAA makes, it refuses to pay college athletes.

# data[].attributes.body
New York Times Upfront

# data[].attributes.headline
To Curb Kids' Sugary Drink Habits, Pediatricians Now Call For Soda Taxes

# data[].attributes.subject
To Curb Kids' Sugary Drink Habits, Pediatricians Now Call For Soda Taxes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Pediatricians have long warned parents about the risks of consuming too many sugary drinks - including the link to Type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Now, the nation's leading group of kids' doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, together with the American Heart Association, has endorsed a range of strategies designed to curb children's consumption - including taxes on sugary drinks, limits on marketing sugary drinks to kids and financial incentives to encourage healthier beverage choices.

"For children, the biggest source of added sugars often is not what they eat, it's what they drink," says Natalie Muth, a pediatrician and the lead author of the new joint policy statement. By one estimate, kids and teens get about 17 percent of their calories from added sugars - and about half of those calories come from drinks.

While consumption of sugary drinks has declined in the U.S., kids and teens still consume about 150 calories a day, on average, from them. That's about 12 ounces per day. But the heart association recommends that children consume no more than 8 ounces per week.

"There's a huge difference between what a typical child is drinking ... and what the recommendations are," Muth says. By one estimate, sweetened beverages account for at least one-fifth of the weight gained between 1977 and 2007 among people in the U.S.

The new statement calls on local, state and national policymakers to consider raising the price of sugary drinks. Muth says taxes on sugary drinks have been shown to be successful. She says taxes are "a great example of a way to increase the price of sugary drinks, which we know decreases consumption." The AAP and the AHA note that such taxes are already in place in U.S. cities including Berkeley, Calif., and Philadelphia.

As we've reported, a study published last year found that Philadelphians were about 40 percent less likely to drink sweetened beverages daily after the tax went into effect, compared with people in surrounding areas that didn't have a sugary drink tax. (One caveat: Other studies suggest that people in cities with soda taxes will go outside the city to buy sugary drinks.)

The soda industry has spent millions of dollars to fend off soda taxes. And the American Beverage Association argues there is a better way to reduce the amount of sugar consumers get from beverages. "We are supporting parents who want less sugar in their kids' diets by creating more drinks than ever before with less or no sugar," says William Dermody, spokesperson for the ABA. "Today, 50 percent of all beverages sold contain zero sugar as we drive toward a goal of reducing beverage calories consumed by 20 percent by 2025."

The new joint policy statement also called on federal and state governments to support efforts to decrease the marketing of sugary drinks to children and teens. "As a nation we have to say 'no' to the onslaught of marketing of sugary drinks to our children," Rachel Johnson, a professor emeritus of nutrition at the University of Vermont and the former chair of the AHA's nutrition committee, said in a statement. "We know what works to protect kids' health and it's time we put effective policies in place that bring down rates of sugary drinks consumption, just like we've done with tobacco."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
To Curb Kids' Sugary Drink Habits, Pediatricians Now Call For Soda Taxes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Pediatricians have long warned parents about the risks of consuming too many sugary drinks - including the link to Type 2 diabetes and obesity. Now, the nation's leading group of kids' doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, together with the American Heart Association, has endorsed a range of strategies designed to curb children's consumption - including taxes on sugary drinks, limits on marketing sugary drinks to kids and financial incentives to encourage healthier beverage choices.

# data[].attributes.headline
 Top-Tier College Athletes Are Professionals Who Deserve a Bigger Slice of the Pie

# data[].attributes.subject
 Top-Tier College Athletes Are Professionals Who Deserve a Bigger Slice of the Pie

# data[].attributes.headline
College Athletes Should Not Be Paid due to Post-Eligibility School Benefits

# data[].attributes.subject
College Athletes Should Not Be Paid due to Post-Eligibility School Benefits

# data[].attributes.headline
 Paying Division I Athletes Will Hurt Lower-Tier Schools

# data[].attributes.subject
 Paying Division I Athletes Will Hurt Lower-Tier Schools

# data[].attributes.headline
Soda Taxes Hurt Consumers and Small Businesses

# data[].attributes.subject
Soda Taxes Hurt Consumers and Small Businesses

# data[].attributes.headline
 Mexico’s Soda Tax Is Working. The US Should Learn From It

# data[].attributes.subject
 Mexico’s Soda Tax Is Working. The US Should Learn From It

# data[].attributes.headline
A Soda Tax Would Not Help Reduce Obesity

# data[].attributes.subject
A Soda Tax Would Not Help Reduce Obesity

# data[].attributes.headline
The Youth Effort To Lower The Voting Age To 16

# data[].attributes.subject
The Youth Effort To Lower The Voting Age To 16

# data[].attributes.body
NPr

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Youth organizers want the voting age lowered to 16. NPR's Michel Martin finds out about their effort from Lorelei Vaisse of Vote16USA.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Let me go back to an issue I raised last weekend on this program. I was thinking about some of the proposals put forward by students who've been touched by gun violence that they've been urging adults to consider, and I decided to throw another idea into the mix. Let them vote. How about lowering the voting age to 16?

Well, we received a ton of emails after that story aired, and several of them pointed out that there are people already working on this with some success and some setbacks. We called Lorelei Vaisse to tell us more about this. She is a senior at Lowell High School in San Francisco and a youth advisory board member for Vote16USA. That's the organization trying to lower the voting age. And I started by asking her why she got involved.

LORELEI VAISSE: I have always been extremely interested in politics. I talk about politics with my dad all the time, often disagreeing with his ideas. And I thought that expanding voting rights to 16 year olds was an amazing idea because I really wanted to vote. I couldn't wait to vote, and a lot of these issues affect 16, 17 year olds, so there's really no reason for them to not be able to vote.

MARTIN: What are some of the reactions that you have heard from people when you have raised this idea of lowering the voting age? What do people say?

VAISSE: People say that 16 year olds and 17 year olds are not mature enough to vote or that they would vote just like their parents. And this has been disproven because in the 2014 Scottish referendum, 16 and 17 year olds were able to vote, and 40 percent of them voted differently from their parents, which showed that they won't necessarily always vote how their parents are voting. And speaking from personal experience, it's the same situation with me because I'm always disagreeing with my parents on political issues.

Other people have raised the issue that lowering the voting age is just a ploy to get more votes for the Democrats, but a 2014 Pew survey showed that 50 percent of millennials self-identify as political independents.

MARTIN: So what about the whole - the broader maturity question? I mean, what do you say to that? I mean, I think that people's kind of - what would I say? - knee-jerk reaction to this would be, oh, you know what, teenagers are so impulsive. They're just immature. They're just not - they're not going to take it seriously. What would you say to that?

VAISSE: Right. So there are two types of cognition. There's hot cognition and cold cognition. And hot cognition is kind of this impulsive reaction to situations, but cold cognition is well-thought-out ideas. And research has shown that although in hot cognition, 16 year olds do differ from 18 year olds, studies have shown that cold cognition does not differ from 16 to 18 year olds.

MARTIN: Well, I understand that there have been some success stories and some setbacks - in Maryland, for example - that there are three cities in Maryland where 16 year olds can vote in local elections. But in 2016, San Francisco, where you live, had lowering the voting age on the ballot as Proposition F, but it failed. Any thoughts about why?

VAISSE: Although the proposition didn't pass, I wouldn't call it a failure because in March or April of 2016, we conducted a survey to see how many people would vote in favor of the proposition, and only 36 percent voted yes. But then in November, we had 48 percent voting yes. So we did increase the number of people who were in support of this proposition, and I think that this comes to show that with education, people are often swayed to vote in favor of this idea.

MARTIN: All right. That's Lorelei Vaisse. She is on the youth advisory board for Vote16USA. That's an organization that is trying to lower the voting age in the United States to 16. Lorelei Vaisse, thank you so much for speaking with us.

VAISSE: Thank you.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Youth Effort To Lower The Voting Age To 16

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Youth organizers want the voting age lowered to 16. NPR's Michel Martin finds out about their effort from Lorelei Vaisse of Vote16USA. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Let me go back to an issue I raised last weekend on this program.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Youth Effort To Lower The Voting Age To 16

# data[].attributes.subject
The Youth Effort To Lower The Voting Age To 16

# data[].attributes.body
All Things Considered (transcript

# data[].attributes.headline
 Lowering the Voting Age Will Increase Voter Turnout

# data[].attributes.subject
 Lowering the Voting Age Will Increase Voter Turnout

# data[].attributes.headline
The surprising consequence of lowering the voting age

# data[].attributes.subject
The surprising consequence of lowering the voting age

# data[].attributes.body
Washington Post

# data[].attributes.headline
Standardized Tests Provide Valuable Indicators of Student Potential

# data[].attributes.subject
Standardized Tests Provide Valuable Indicators of Student Potential

# data[].attributes.headline
 Abuse of 'extended time' on SAT and ACT outrages learning disability community

# data[].attributes.subject
 Abuse of 'extended time' on SAT and ACT outrages learning disability community

# data[].attributes.body
Washington Post

# data[].attributes.headline
College Applicants Sweat The SATs. Perhaps They Shouldn't

# data[].attributes.subject
College Applicants Sweat The SATs. Perhaps They Shouldn't