The real madness in college basketball isn’t confined to March. It’s on display year-round.

It isn’t the low graduation rates of players at the big basketball schools: Less than forty percent of the players on recent Ohio State basketball teams received degrees, according to an Associated Press report of a study by Richard Lapchick, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports. Nor is it the so-called “prep schools,” most or all of whose students, according to the New York Times, are high school basketball players trying to increase their GPAs or SAT scores so they can play in college.

Here as with other scandals, as Michael Kinsley has pointed out, the real disgrace isn’t what’s illegal. It’s what’s legal. And not only legal but the sport’s fundamental modus operandi: the recruiting and enrolling, for the primary purpose of playing basketball, of young men who have no interest in getting college educations, by colleges that have no interest in educating them.

Almost all of the recurring college sports scandals can be traced directly to this sordid charade. Low graduation rates? No surprise: granting a degree isn’t why the colleges admitted these athletes, and it’s not why the athletes decided to enrolled. Admission of athletes with low high school GPAs and SAT scores? Who cares? They have the only numbers that matter: high points-per-game averages.

The colleges get what they want: competitive basketball teams. The players get what they want: a chance to hone their basketball skills and audition for NBA careers. And the NBA gets what it wants: a de facto–and absolutely free–minor league system.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is the hypocrisy that big-time college sports demand from the schools that practice it–schools presumably dedicated to teaching integrity as well as academics–and from the athletes who participate in it. It’s reminiscent of the bitter joke among Soviet workers who were paid in almost worthless rubles: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” Colleges pretend to educate their basketball and football players, and the athletes pretend to study. The University of Connecticut, traditionally (although not this year) a powerhouse in both men’s and women’s basketball, says it’s “proud of [its] student-athlete graduation rate”–but graduates less than a third of its basketball players.

There’s another injustice being perpetrated here. College basketball and football are referred to as revenue sports because they bring in more money in tickets and TV rights than it costs the colleges to run them. Is there another example, other, perhaps, than zoos, where the performers that fans pay to see are not paid?

A Simple Solution
There’s a simple solution–not easy, and not cost-free, but simple–one that would give players, colleges, and the NBA most of the benefits of the current system, and end the dreary procession of scandals.

Abolish the requirement that players for college basketball teams have to be students. Pay the players at least the cash value of the full-ride scholarships they now get–or whatever the market will bear. If the revenue from tickets and TV deals don’t cover the payroll, maybe the NBA could kick in something, the way baseball teams do for their minor league affiliates. Student-athletes who are serious about getting college degrees could get scholarships as part of their compensation packages.

College-basketball supporter friends of mine have pointed out that there are many basketball programs that make it possible for young men and women to get an education because of their basketball skills that would otherwise be beyond their means. They also point out that coaching staffs include people who help team members focus on their studies and balance academic work with practicing and games. Those colleges would be relatively unaffected by the changes I am suggesting, except that their young student-athletes would enjoy the dignity of having money of their own to spend while at school.

There are also students who are attracted to college only by the possibility of playing basketball or football and who discover there a true desire for education that would never have been revealed. They may well miss out on an education they otherwise would have valued. But is the only way to get them to college to maintain athletic programs with budgets that run into the tens and hundreds of millions and principles that run counter to what universities are supposed to stand for?

There’s ample precedent for not requiring college athletes to be students. Colleges with TV and radio stations don’t require that their producers or on-air talent be students. They hire professionals, and pay them. Colleges who want actors, painters, and film makers on campus bring them aboard as professors or as artists in residence–and pay them.

Aren’t college basketball players also worthy of their hire? And isn’t the current system unworthy of great colleges and universities?