Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

I run athletics at a Division II school with a $14 million budget. Football loses money. Basketball loses money. We sponsor 18 sports because our mission is participation, not profit. Make athletes employees and my payroll obligation explodes overnight: wages, benefits, payroll taxes, workers' comp, multiplied across 400 athletes and then roughly doubled again by Title IX. Where does that money come from? We don't have a TV deal. We have ticket sales and student fees. Employment doesn't just change big-time football. It ends college sports at hundreds of schools like mine, and with them the only chance thousands of kids get to compete, stay in school, and earn a degree. The debate always centers on the 30 programs that print money. The casualties will be the 1,000 that don't.