Yes, you can get paid to play college sports, and in more ways than at any time in the history of the NCAA. As of July 2025, Division I schools can pay athletes directly from a revenue-sharing pool of up to $20.5 million per school per year. Athletes can also sign Name, Image, and Likeness deals with outside companies for anything from a few free products to seven-figure endorsements, receive athletic scholarships that at some schools exceed $60,000 a year, and collect up to $5,980 annually in academic achievement awards. How much any individual athlete actually receives depends on the school, the sport, and the athlete’s marketability.
Direct Payments From Your School
The biggest shift came when a federal court gave final approval to the House v. NCAA settlement in June 2025. For the first time, schools can share institutional revenue directly with athletes. Each participating Division I school may distribute up to $20.5 million total among its athletes during the 2025-26 academic year, and the cap is expected to rise about four percent annually.1NCAA. Question and Answer — Implementation of the House Settlement (Phase Three) Projections put the cap near $32.9 million by the 2034-35 academic year.2National Conference of State Legislatures. What the NCAA Settlement Means for Colleges and State Legislatures
Schools began writing these checks on July 1, 2025. Each institution decides on its own whether to pay and how to divide the money, so individual payments vary widely between schools and between sports.1NCAA. Question and Answer — Implementation of the House Settlement (Phase Three) To keep receiving payments, you must stay enrolled full-time and meet progress-toward-degree requirements. Falling behind academically makes you ineligible for direct payments through the end of that term’s final exams.3NCAA. Question and Answer — Implementation of the House Settlement (Phase Four)
How Title IX applies to this money is still an open question. Guidance issued in early 2025 suggested revenue-sharing money must be split equally between male and female athletes; that guidance was rescinded soon after.2National Conference of State Legislatures. What the NCAA Settlement Means for Colleges and State Legislatures Schools are proceeding without a clear rule on whether concentrating payments in football and men’s basketball creates Title IX exposure.
NIL Deals With Outside Companies
Since July 2021, athletes have been allowed to earn money by licensing their name, image, and likeness to third parties.4NCAA. NCAA Adopts Interim Name Image and Likeness Policy NIL income can come from social media endorsements, autograph signings, public appearances, merchandise sales, and similar commercial activity. The payer is a business, a brand, or a donor-funded collective — not your school. Some athletes earn nothing more than free gear. A small number sign deals well into seven figures.
Collectives are the piece of this to understand. They pool booster and fan money to create NIL opportunities for athletes at a particular school. Under NCAA rules adopted in October 2025, every collective or booster-funded NIL contract must include a specific deliverable, such as an appearance, a social media post, or an endorsement. Schools cannot promise recruits or transfers guaranteed collective money — a practice that had spread in earlier years and that the new rules are meant to shut down.
If you sign an NIL contract worth more than $600, you must report it to the NCAA’s centralized reporting system within five business days. New enrollees and transfers have 14 days after arriving at a school to report existing contracts. Miss the deadline and you become immediately ineligible for practice and competition until the contract is disclosed.
If You Are on an F-1 Student Visa
International athletes on F-1 visas face a hard limit here. The F-1 is a study visa, not a work visa, and being paid for a promotional appearance, an endorsement post, or an autograph session generally counts as unauthorized employment. Consequences can include loss of visa status, deportation, and bars on future visas or residency. Most international athletes are advised to skip U.S.-based NIL work entirely or to limit their activity to work performed and paid in their home country.
Athletic Scholarships and Cost-of-Attendance Stipends
For most athletes, the scholarship is still the largest piece of the picture. A full NCAA scholarship covers tuition, fees, room, board, books, supplies, transportation, and other costs up to the school’s federally calculated cost of attendance.5NCAA. Scholarships At a public university for an in-state student, that runs around $30,000 a year. At an expensive private school, it can top $60,000.
Because the scholarship is tied to the total cost of attendance rather than just tuition, it includes a cash stipend for living expenses, personal costs, and travel that tuition and housing don’t cover. That stipend is usually paid to you directly, often monthly.
Not every scholarship is a full ride. Many awards are still renewed year to year at the coach’s discretion. If a school plans to reduce or not renew your scholarship, it must give you written notice by July 1 and let you appeal.5NCAA. Scholarships
One boundary worth flagging: NCAA rules require that every athlete have insurance coverage for sports-related injuries with limits up to $90,000 before they can practice or compete, but schools are permitted, not required, to provide that coverage.6NCAA. Insurance Coverage for Student-Athletes If neither the school nor a parent’s policy covers you, you have to buy your own before you can play.
Alston Academic Awards
On top of scholarships and stipends, schools may pay you up to $5,980 per year in cash awards tied to academic achievement. This benefit comes from the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in NCAA v. Alston, which struck down the NCAA’s ability to cap education-related benefits.7Supreme Court of the United States. National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston et al. The amount has not been adjusted since. Under the House settlement, the first $2.5 million a school spends on Alston awards counts against its $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap.8NCAA. Question and Answer — Implementation of the House Settlement (Phase Seven)
What You Actually Take Home After Taxes
NIL money and revenue-sharing payments are taxable income. The IRS treats athletes earning NIL income as independent contractors, not employees, which means no one is withholding taxes for you. You report the income, you pay the tax, you handle the paperwork.9Internal Revenue Service. Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) Income
Hit $400 in NIL income in a year and you have to file a federal tax return and pay self-employment tax, which covers Social Security and Medicare. The combined rate is 15.3 percent of net earnings: 12.4 percent Social Security and 2.9 percent Medicare.10Social Security Administration. 2026 Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Fact Sheet That is on top of regular federal and state income tax. Because nothing is withheld, you may need to make quarterly estimated tax payments using IRS Form 1040-ES to avoid penalties.9Internal Revenue Service. Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) Income
NIL income goes on Schedule C. Ordinary business expenses tied to your NIL activity — travel for appearances, website costs, equipment like microphones or cameras, agent fees, accountant fees — can reduce the amount that gets taxed. Keep records as you go.
Effect on Financial Aid
NIL and revenue-sharing income also count on the FAFSA. Your Student Aid Index, the number that drives need-based federal aid, rises as your income rises, and your Pell Grant shrinks dollar for dollar.11Federal Student Aid. Student Aid Index (SAI) and Pell Grant Eligibility An athlete from a lower-income family who signs a sizeable NIL deal could see the Pell Grant reduced or wiped out the following year. The headline number on a deal is rarely the net.
Are College Athletes Employees
Despite being paid in all these ways, athletes are not classified as employees. That distinction keeps you outside the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime rules, outside workers’ compensation, and outside collective bargaining. It also means schools don’t withhold income taxes or pay employer-side payroll taxes on your scholarship or revenue-sharing money.
The classification is being fought over. In Johnson v. NCAA, the Third Circuit ruled in 2024 that college athletes cannot be automatically excluded from FLSA protections based on a tradition of amateurism, and set out a test asking whether athletes perform services for another party, primarily for that party’s benefit, under that party’s control, in exchange for compensation.12United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Ralph Trey Johnson et al. v. National Collegiate Athletic Association et al. The case was sent back down and remains pending as of early 2026. Congress is moving in the opposite direction: the SCORE Act, introduced in September 2025, would prohibit classifying college athletes as employees by statute. Until one of those tracks resolves, you get paid, but not as an employee.