They are receiving scholarships.
High school coaches receive stipends/ additional salary for coaching their sports. The individual high schools receive ticket sales, so high school athletes should receive a weekly paycheck correct? There's a massive difference between making a career out of something and being semi-professional. College athletes much like college students with their sights on professional leagues are learning the skillsets and conditioning from these coaches to groom themselves for their future careers while those that don't have a future in professional athletics are making approximately 10K - 60K (typically in the middle) per year in scholarships. (60K is the high end, if I remember correctly Miami U is 55K? Number could be off)
As long as they want to hold onto the student-athlete label they need to operate as such, legitimately the NCAA has not been holding to that ethos. If they continue down the path they are going (encouraging trivial systems that collapse regional conferences in favor of increased budgeting for the schools therein) than it will come eventually. That shouldn't be the intent for college athletes. The NCAA is in the wrong at the moment, there is no denying that, but two wrongs don't solve a problem.
Not to mention while it works for the main revenue grossing programs (NCAAF, NCAAMB), what about the other sports that are already subsidized by budgets coming from the 'main two'.
Colleges at their forefront are an educational institute and they provide their service in exchange to the outstanding college athletes whom utilize their talents to further the interests of the schools. Now that is a little less shady (keyword: little) but it's obvious the NCAA is grossing revenue beyond what they are reinvesting back, and as long as they want to maintain the moniker's of student-athletes and continue stressing parity, the true solution is a re-evaulation of the governing body of the college as well as a more formalized and standardized distribution of incomes so that the schools as a whole are benefiting from athletic programs and don't stress their foundation.
The current system needs to be amended / laxed in some cases, that much is true. There is some ridiculous stories out there, but simply trying to apply a basic economic principle for an intricate system isn't an answer. (Implementing the agency system and allowing the supply and demand of student athletes settle an equilibrium price)