The government should withdraw its support for the NCAA cartel

Ilya Somin proposes "a conceptually simple, though politically difficult, solution" to the problem of underpaid college athletes:

The government should withdraw its support for the NCAA cartel. Universities will gradually stop pretending that Division I football and basketball players are primarily students, and start treating them as the employees they actually are. The players will get paid for their work, and they and the universities won’t have to waste time and money forcing players to attend bogus classes in order to keep up appearances. Those who have the desire and academic credentials to do real coursework should of course be allowed to do so.