Believe it or not, very few colleges make money from their football programs. The costs of running a football program are incredibly high. Certainly there are many teams that rake in the dollars, those that fill 100,000 seats 6-7 weeks a year, those that have tremendous sales of football-related items, and those that receive thousands upon thousands of dollars in contributions from their fans. UT-Austin made a $77.9 profit from football in 2011-12 to rank #1. Far from the norm.
Something I quickly found:
A recent NCAA report done by professor Dan Fulks of Transylvania University in Kentucky shows that only 14 of the 120 FBS schools profited from campus athletics during the 2009 fiscal year. Maybe not surprisingly, sixty-eight universities reported a profit in football.
So 52 of the 120 FBS (formerly known as Division I) universities were not making a profit in 2009 from their football programs. So how many FCS (Division II) universities and Division III and NAIA Universities are making a profit from football? My guess is a much lower percentage than those in the FBS. So for most college football programs, giving athletes some sort of monthly stipend for living expenses would push more programs into the red.
Let's not forget that football players on full scholarship get free tuition, room and board, and money for books I believe. Even at state colleges that is a nice chunk of change. At schools like Notre Dame and Stanford it is a king's ransom. I would certainly agree with you that a minority of the football players have trouble generating money for living expenses. Paying student-athletes money has been talked about for years. Below is a link to an article on the subject.
http://www.kaleo.org/sports/paying-p...9bb30f31a.html