By Steve Berkowitz, Jodi Upton, and Calder Silcox
Updated
The idea of giving athletes more money to play major-college sports is gaining traction with the NCAA, even though it appears few in college athletics have a clear view of the price tag.
By Andrew Weber, US Presswire
Quarterback Jordan Wynn and his Utah teammates have a difference of about $8,000 in costs from the scholarships they receive, the university estimates.
By Andrew Weber, US Presswire
Quarterback Jordan Wynn and his Utah teammates have a difference of about $8,000 in costs from the scholarships they receive, the university estimates.
Some athletes have long advocated that scholarships should cover incidental costs, such as laundry and travel between home and campus. In 2009-10 those additional costs ranged from $177 per scholarship at Georgia State to more than $9,600 at Southern Utah, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the most recently available data from Division I schools. That would make such scholarship enhancement a potential recruiting advantage for some schools.
The added burden for schools would vary widely, from about 1% of the athletics budget at nearly all the Big Ten Conference schools to 20% at North Florida, the analysis found. That discrepancy might force some schools to reduce their number of scholarships and/or recruit players who could be able to shop around for the best scholarships.
If scholarships are allowed to cover the full cost of attendance "we would have to look at our sports programs and decide which ones we want to keep and which ones we couldn't," says R.C. Johnson, athletics director at Memphis, where tuition is increasing 11% this year and enhanced scholarships would require an additional 3% budget increase.
Offering the enhanced scholarships to some teams and not others could cause problems, he adds. "You've got to stay flexible," he says, "but it's better to have your sports competing the same way."
The matter is likely to be a centerpiece topic at a special meeting of college presidents that NCAA President Mark Emmert is hosting Aug. 9-10 in Indianapolis. That meeting also is slated to cover disparities in athletics finances, including the small number of programs that can cover their current costs without subsidies from student fees, their schools and/or state governments.
Athletes' scholarships currently cover only tuition, fees, room, board and required books. Sensitive to the money pouring in from media and marketing rights deals — and the enormous salaries paid to prominent coaches — Emmert and the commissioners of some elite conferences recently have expressed support for allowing scholarships to cover the cost of attendance. That higher amount includes hard-to-estimate items such as travel, school supplies and personal costs.
Under a full cost-of-attendance model, the median cost per scholarship for Division I public schools would have been about $4,000 more than the standard scholarship in 2009-10, according to USA TODAY's analysis, which used public records requests to obtain data from 223 schools. That's about 30% higher than an estimate commonly held by athletics administrators, using older data and including private schools.
The added cost at Utah, located in Salt Lake City, was about $8,100; at UCLA, also a member of recently expanded Pacific-12 Conference, it was about $3,100. At Memphis, it was $5,500; at fellow Conference USA school, Southern Miss, in Hattiesburg, Miss., it was about $5,000.
"That just doesn't equate to me," says Memphis athletics director Johnson, reacting to both comparisons. "I'm not saying anybody made it up, but I don't know. . . . There's nothing wrong with taking a look at (full cost-of-attendance scholarships), but at some point the details have to be addressed before we keep going forward."
For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. We've updated the Conversation Guidelines. Changes include a brief review of the moderation process and an explanation on how to use the "Report Abuse" button. Read more.
No comments:
Post a Comment