No it isn’t. The effort to promote amateurism is an effort to do two things. Provide a measure of differentiation for a product that is sold by the universities and control the costs of producing that product. It has nothing to do with protecting and encouraging the student half of things.
Walter Byers was the executive director who built the NCAA into what it is today. He oversaw the introduction of athletic scholarships, created the enforcement division, hammered Kentucky to establish authority, expanded the tournament, negotiated the first big tv deals, invented the term “student-athlete” to avoid paying for injured players, etc.
Byers is the man most reasonable for establishing and imbedding the concept of amateurism into college sports. And in his own words, Byers said:
"Collegiate amateurism is not a moral issue; it is an economic camouflage for monopoly practice...”
Amateurism was never about protecting the student half of things.