As a former student athlete in division I football I will say that yes get free education, room/board and some other benefits. Those are all important but the issue is the money made purely off the athletes far out does the amount that the education and other things cost that are given. Then worse is the universities don't even put all those dollars back into the school they partially go to line the pockets of the boards and NCAA. I'd have less problem if the money all went back in to the school's education and/or athletic programs however it isn't sadly.
Also like it or not the student athlete has more to deal with then the average student as far as what goes on in a day to day life as far as their education goes. Yes they choose to do it and go through the practices but just as simple as an RA gets paid benefits or other students can get paying jobs to help them out the student athletes cannot do this because of the practice, workouts, games along with class schedule does not allow for it, as well as even if there were time most schools won't allow the scholarship athletes to work outside jobs.
Then the insurance factor... most kids do not have the money financially to insure themselves either life insurance or health insurance the risks on body and medical costs in cases which there are some that schools do not cover despite making billions off of the athletes is an added cost that other students do not have or if they do have they don't go out every week putting themselves at risk for the school.
Lastly on the support for them being paid, is simple.. especially with football you cannot be a professional at the top level until you are 3 years at least removed from high school. This is not something that any other profession prevents, so simply not having that option makes it unfair to football players not to be able to receive any payment at all, where as if you want you at least have the choice in any other profession to skip or leave school early and still get paid.
Now having said that I still don't necessarily support college athletes being paid, I just feel the system needs to be changed so that the money that is being made from college athletics is distributed differently in the very least that it's not all about profit for school officials. Money should be put back in to the athletic programs and education, not as a cash cow for school officials and the NCAA. Also any jersey sales or things that directly are money made off the player a percentage of that however small should go to the player in an escrow account or something where the player receives it but only after schooling is finished. That way the player isn't getting screwed completely either. It's a very simple change to be made...
I just think it can be looked at in all different ways and because of being a student athlete and also being directly involved with my wife's career in the college academics side of this I get to see both sides directly and can really share a unique point of view for people to look at things. Again the issue isn't simply should they get paid or should they not... there is a lot of other little things that factor into the argument that aren't talked about as much by the media and gives the student athletes an unfair criticism because all people hear is about how these athletes want money in their pocket, but it's far more then just that.