Making transfer athletes wait out an entire season before being allowed to play does more harm than good.

The premise is obviously to prevent collegiate athletes from designating themselves as "free agents" and switching among schools, but when an athlete is forced to sit out a full academic year, all it does is make him more valuable to a team.

If redshirted, the transfer will practice, train and improve (in theory) his or her abilities throughout the season, while still having a year of eligibility beyond the "normal" graduation time.

Although it happens often in collegiate athletics, this amounts to eliminating the term "student athlete." One of the unique challenges of being a student athlete is that these players must find out how to balance the game all the while making the grades.

In addition, we cannot overlook the problem currently facing collegiate athletics: it is no longer an "amateur" institution.

People claim they love college sports because of their innocence. However, that is far from the case.

Everyone - from the schools to the coaches to the television networks to the bookstores to the sneaker companies - makes money off the student-athlete. College athletics is a multi-billion-dollar industry that exploits the players who put in the hard work.

While paying student-athletes is an issue for another day, other things can be done to give them a sense of empowerment, which they rightly deserve.

For example, coaches promise players the world when recruiting them. They tell the players how much they love the program and how they will never leave, but then take off when a better opportunity (i.e., more money) comes along.

How is it fair, then, that a student-athlete is forced to stay at the school? Shouldn't he or she be allowed to transfer, just like the coach, without having to sit out a year?

Undoubtedly, problems would arise if players could transfer at will. However, stipulations could be put in place to prevent student-athletes from taking advantage of the policy.

Student-athletes are powerless in a system that takes advantage of them and it is about time something changes.