In a Commission on Accreditation of Athletic
Training Education (CAATE) program there are certain rules and
regulations that the university must follow in order to remain an accredited program. One of the rules that must be followed, as stated in The Standards for Accreditation of Professional Athletic Training Programs, is students will not receive any monetary remuneration during the education experience, excluding scholarships.
Although athletic training students may receive scholarships to help pay for tuition, it is not enough to cover the entire cost. According to Digest of Education Statistic, the current mean cost of a public university education per year is $15,788. Athletic training students who receive little financial aid or scholarship must find another source of income to defray basic cost of living expenses not covered by scholarships.
In a CAATE accredited program, students are allowed to work a maximum of 10-15 hours a week,
but they frequently exceed that amount. From a personal perspective, by the end
of my clinical rotations during my senior year I had accumulated over 2000
hours. In the athletic training profession, student trainers often work odd
hours and do not have weekends off making it difficult for students to find a
job that fits within their schedule.
Athletic training students are an essential part of
the athletic training staff at the collegiate level. They help keep the training
room running smoothly by lightening the head athletic trainers work load. Although
some students get a little bit of scholarship money to help with tuition, it is
often times not enough. With all the hard work that athletic training students
put in, I believe that universities should offer more scholarship money, or
allow students to earn work study money once they hit the 15-hour work limit
per week.
Athletic Training students are an essential part of Sports Medicine Teams at colleges and universities around the nation. Without students, things would simply not get done; ultimately affecting athletes and teams’ performance. AT students do not have time for themselves or to find a side job that helps support their expenses. This is why AT directors must ensure that AT students only work 10-15 hours as they are supposed to, after that, they should be allowed to go free and do whatever they think it is the best for them (studying, resting, getting a job). AT director should have AT students rotate throughout the week and schedule them for specific hours. There is no need for having all AT students there at the same time every day. If you want students there for more than 15 hours, you should pay or provide student wages.
ReplyDeleteThe subject of Graduate Assistants being underpaid is very important and hits close to home for me. When looking at the hours that most GA’s work and the money they make for doing this work, it does not add up. GA’s get paid the same amount each month and most will work over the forty hours a week that they are paid for. Looking into the duties of a basketball GA is a great example of how many are grossly underpaid. These GA’s must be at all practices and meetings, break down practice and game film, go out recruiting, and many other tasks as assigned by the head coach, and on top of these jobs they are also taking masters level classes and are required to maintain a 3.0 or better GPA. As if that were not enough, they must then hope to stretch the little salary they earn ($1000 a month in many cases) out for the entire month. By the time rent, bills, and gas are paid, there is not much left to make it to the next month. The same can be said for football GA’s, they have to be at the team’s practices, break down film, and recruit as well. Granted that some GA’s will only work the required 4 hours a day, the allotted pay scale works for them. But for the GA’s who job requirements have them working more than 40 hours a week, they should be paid more based on hours worked. In the Article “OVERWORKED, UNDERPAID - AND YET GLAD TO BE GRAD ASSISTANTS”, it states that GA’s must perform coaching duties 10 to 12 hours a day and the NCAA requires that they not only be accepted into graduate school, but that they must make steady progress toward an advanced degree. So you can see the work that coaching Graduate Assistants do is more than most.
ReplyDeleteAs explained in the post, there is not a more passionate and driven individual on campus. A sports medicine program seems to be a big draw at most universities and these programs are most of the time the marque emphasis for kinesiology departments. All in all, universities depend on athletic departments to market and fundraise in order to make the university viable and competitive. Athletic trainers are a vital piece for success, and are consistently overlooked when it comes time to distribute funds.
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