‘Full Scholarship’ Could Cost College Athletes $30,000

by James Parks, Apr 6, 2009

College athletes generate $4 billion a year in total revenue for their schools. The 2009 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which ends tonight, put $6 billion in TV rights alone in college coffers.

While you can be sure all the student athletes on the court tonight are on “full” athletic scholarships, what you probably didn’t know is that every one of them still will have to pay thousands of dollars for their education, even though they make fortunes for their schools.

Last week, the National College Players Association (NCPA) released a study showing that colleges are duping athletes into thinking they are getting full scholarships, when they actually end up owing as much as $30,000 for their education on the day they graduate.

The NCPA report says that, by and large, universities have been deceiving recruits, many of whom are under the age of 18 and from disadvantaged backgrounds, into unknowingly being responsible for paying for school while they supposedly are on a “full” scholarship.  

Says United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard, whose union has supported the NCPA and its mission since 2001:

The fact is, coaches fill high school recruits’ heads with promises of free rides and full scholarships, when in fact no such things exist. The NCAA designs full scholarships to fall short of the advertised price tag of a school, leaving recruits scrambling to make ends meet.

NCAA rules prohibit universities from providing athletic scholarships that equal the cost of attendance. That means an athlete on ”full scholarship” is expected to pay out of pocket for expenses that are not covered by the scholarship .

NCPA President Ramogi Huma says it is “deceptive to call it a ‘full’ athletic scholarship when it doesn’t fully pay for a university’s estimated price tag.” 

These same universities offer “full” academic scholarships that do cover the price tag of a school. This appears to be a deliberate attempt at misleading young high school student-athletes, their parents and current college athletes

According to the report, NCAA scholarship limitations can leave a full scholarship athlete with expenses ranging from as low as $200 per year to more than $6,000 per year. That means NCAA rules require a “full” scholarship athlete to pay up to $30,000 over five years in school.

An athlete on “full scholarship” would be required to pay out of pocket, on average, $2,763 per year, or more than $13,800 over the course of five years. Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis had the highest scholarship shortfall, amounting to more than $6,000 per year, followed closely by the University of Missouri-Kansas City, East Tennessee State University, Saint Louis University, University of Louisville and Charleston Southern University, all with a more than $5,000 per year estimated shortfall. 

You can look up the estimated scholarship shortfall for every one of the 336 NCAA schools here.

Gerard adds:

With hundreds of thousands of athletes participating in NCAA sports, how many athletes have been unfairly burdened with debt in the last few decades due to the misinformation that they have received? How much debt have they put on high-interest credit cards that will take many years to pay off?

A previous NCPA study shows the turnover rate for players on four-year scholarships on this year’s NCAA men’s tournament teams is nearly 30 percent. The study compared schools’ rosters for this season with the 2007-2008 season. The study excluded players who turned professional or were seniors.

For more on the NCPA’s mission, click here. Click here for a video with several former college athletes and others discussing why they are active and support the NCPA.

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