Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Money Talks - Academic vs. Athletic Scholarships

Let’s say you’re a pretty good swimmer who’s starting to look at colleges. Among the many decisions to make over the next ten months is whether to focus your efforts on D1, D2, or D3 schools. Like any other college bound student, you probably don’t want to pay the full sticker price to attend ANY school. Who could blame you, a college education is very, very expensive. So right off the bat, you may be drawn toward D1 and D2 schools by the allure of the athletic scholarship. What do those D3 schools have to offer you, right? Well, as it turns out, D3 schools like Randolph-Macon can be quite affordable, and will most often be able to offer you more money based on academic achievement than a D1 school would be able to offer for an athletic scholarship.

Bill Pennington of The New York Times wrote an excellent article on the subject of athletic scholarships earlier this year, in which the reality of the situation was laid out pretty well. The truth is that there aren’t too many full scholarships that are given out in D1 athletics. Most Division 1 scholarship athletes, including some of the very best, receive only partial athletic scholarships. The NCAA actually limits the number of scholarships that sports teams can award. In women’s swimming, the maximum is 14 in Division 1 and 8.1 in Division 2. On top of that, you have to take into account the fact that not all swimming teams are funded at these maximum levels by their university athletic departments. Finally, keep in mind that teams can carry 18 swimmers to conference and NCAA championships, and most coaches will want more athletes than that on their roster. The end result is that most scholarships are divided up among the 20 or more athletes on the team. The average D1 women’s swimming scholarship amounts to approximately $9,500. In Division II, it is less than this.

Now compare that to Randolph-Macon:
At R-MC, the average award for academic scholarships and grants is in excess of $16,800. Our Presidential Scholars Program gives out awards ranging up to $20,000 per year!! In addition to this, the average need based financial aid package is $24,200, with 52% of students receiving such awards.

It literally pays to do well in school, and in many cases, a student will get more money at Randolph-Macon from the combination of academic awards and need based aid than from a Division 1 athletic scholarship.