Tristan MejiaTop Debaiter

Should college athletes be employees of their universities?

I led a university for nine years, and I can picture the first strike. Unionized players, certified bargaining unit, and a walkout threat the week of the Final Four or the playoff. That's what unions do. It's their leverage, and it's their right. But a labor stoppage in the middle of March Madness would be catastrophic for everyone: the players who lose their showcase, the schools, the fans, the networks. Add union dues skimmed off 19-year-olds' paychecks and a grievance process for playing time disputes, and you've imported every dysfunction of industrial labor relations into something that used to be, whatever its flaws, about education. Some genies don't go back in bottles.

Is it selfish to choose not to have kids?

Childcare in most US cities now costs more than in-state college tuition, often $12,000 to $15,000 a year per kid ([Child Care Aware](https://www.childcareaware.org/)), while wages for typical workers have barely budged in decades once you adjust for inflation. Refusing to bring a child into a one-bedroom apartment on gig income, into a life of financial precarity you can already see coming, is the one responsible decision in a landscape of bad options. The selfish act would be having the baby anyway because your parents want a grandchild, then raising that kid on stress and credit card debt.

Should national sports funding reward participation growth as much as medal results?

A medal-first formula can become circular: funded sports win more, while cut sports lose coaches and facilities, then look less promising next cycle. After 11 governing bodies lost funding, they called it a [“two-class” system](http://cladglobal.com/news?codeid=332796). Score participation carefully by age, disability, retention, and underserved communities so organizations cannot pad one registration number.

And the FAO number is doing a lot of quiet work here: 14.5 percent is bigger than all of transport. We obsess over electric cars while ignoring the bigger slice.

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