Big-time college sports programs will be allowed to offer thousands of dollars a year of new aid to athletes starting this fall, a change designed to funnel more money to players as television revenue has exploded.
Previously, colleges could cover only the cost of a basic scholarship — tuition, fees, room and board, and books. Now, they can meet the full cost of attendance for players competing at the highest level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The new money, approved in January by the so-called Power Five conferences, could further separate the top programs from the rest. The change worries leaders at many smaller Division I institutions, but some athletic directors believe the move was a necessary step toward more fairly compensating players.
The imbalance is evident not only between programs at the top and bottom of Division I. Even among the wealthiest programs, there are significant disparities in how much money will go to players, according to a Chronicle analysis of the estimated cost of attendance at 25 top-ranked football programs. That could alter the dynamics in recruiting and put new pressure on college budgets.
Among the 25 colleges, Auburn University has the largest gap between its tuition, fees, room and board, and books and its estimate of students’ personal expenses, which colleges have traditionally not been allowed to cover.
Starting this fall, Auburn plans to allocate more than $2 million — or $5,586 per full-scholarship player, plus a portion for students on partial aid — to cover personal expenses, such as clothing, cellphone, and transportation.
That works out to about $620 a month in new aid, according to Jay Jacobs, the university’s athletic director. (The figures are based on a nine-month academic calendar. Players who stay for summer school, he says, could receive three more months of payments.)
Across the country, at the University of Southern California, the cost-of-attendance gap is much smaller. The university estimates that its students spend $1,580 for two semesters of transportation, personal, and miscellaneous expenses.
Based on that number, USC players would be eligible for an estimated $175 a month in new aid.
The fact that cost-of-living expenses in Auburn, Ala., are estimated to be more than three times greater than those in Los Angeles illustrates the wide latitude that institutions have in calculating full cost of attendance.
Colleges are required to report their estimate of the full cost of attendance to the federal government and cannot offer aid beyond that amount. Institutions have incentives to count those costs in different ways.
Financial-aid officials say that high-priced private institutions sometimes underestimate students’ personal expenses in their published cost of attendance, hoping to limit the sticker shock that can accompany their tuition bills. That might help ease the financial worries of prospective students and their parents. But the lower figures could hurt those institutions in their pursuit of college athletes.
Just two days after the scholarship changes were approved, in January, a top compliance official at one Southeastern Conference university got a call from the head women’s basketball coach concerned about a top recruit, who was reportedly leaning toward another university over a $2,000 cost-of-attendance difference. (The compliance officer asked not to be identified so as not to draw attention to the university’s low cost-of-attendance number.)
Tim Tessalone, a spokesman for USC, said the university’s cost-of-attendance number had not affected its football recruiting for next season. The university had the country’s third-best recruiting class, according to ESPN, a few spots ahead of Auburn.
Mr. Tessalone said his university’s coaches planned to emphasize the value of a USC education, along with the program’s top training facilities and winning tradition.
“We tend to look at the total value of a USC scholarship, which is $65,000, and the quality of education that comes with that scholarship,” Mr. Tessalone said.
Because of the timing of the scholarship change, which happened after most football and basketball players in next year’s recruiting classes had already committed, it may not cause much immediate disruption.
“I was here for every one of our official visits, and neither a parent nor a student-athlete mentioned cost of attendance to me,” says Mr. Jacobs, of Auburn.
But once recruits understand what’s at stake, he and others say, the money could have an impact on their decisions.
“I hope it’s not the reason they choose one school over another,” Mr. Jacobs says. But to recruits or families that need the money, he is glad he has a lot to offer.
Incentives for Aid
Legal challenges to the NCAA’s scholarship limits created an incentive for colleges to offer the extra aid.
But the money is a double-edged sword, says Scott Stricklin, athletic director at Mississippi State University, which has budgeted about $1.3 million to cover players’ full cost of attendance.
“You want to provide as much as possible for your student-athletes, but on the other side you’ve got to pay for it,” he said. “My coaches are really happy about it. My CFO is not.”
Athletic directors at many top programs say they plan to cover the full cost of attendance for their full-scholarship athletes. To finance the effort, at least one department — Florida State University’s — has called for an across-the-board 2-percent cut in athletics spending.
In sports where players receive only partial awards, programs are considering various approaches. In some cases, teams plan to base the extra money they give players for cost of attendance on the amount of their scholarships. A player on 50-percent scholarship, for example, would receive half of the cost-of-attendance money that athletes on full scholarship receive.
But some programs are using the money as a kind of blank check to coaches, allowing them to disperse it largely at their discretion. That could lead coaches to allocate the money based on athletic performance — play better one year, get more money the next — the way they often allocate their scholarship budgets. In other cases, coaches are planning to hand out the extra dollars to players who have the least aid.
Coaches have also discussed using the money to add roster spots, putting more players on scholarship rather than helping the players who are already on their teams.
Mr. Stricklin says he has discouraged his coaches from taking that approach.
“Adding more players or spreading scholarships out among additional athletes defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to accomplish here,” he says.
His coaches have assured him that they won’t use the money that way. But, in a competitive environment, he knows that is always possible.
Recruiting Advantages
In recent days, at least two major conferences have met to answer questions about the scholarship changes. The NCAA has also issued guidance. The discussions have highlighted the tension between athletics departments and financial-aid offices. While athletics leaders are looking to bolster cost-of-attendance figures, financial-aid officials would prefer to keep the numbers low.
Chad Hawley, associate commissioner of compliance in the Big Ten Conference, says that its colleges are working to make their cost estimates clearer.
One expense he has discussed with colleagues is “books and supplies,” which many institutions combine. NCAA colleges have traditionally been allowed to cover the cost of required books for players on full scholarship. But colleges have not covered supplies. Breaking supplies out as their own expense (Arizona State University does, for example, and estimates them at $300) could allow athletic departments to increase their payouts.
“If you want to make sure players get 100 percent of the full cost of attendance,” Mr. Hawley says, “you’re going to have to come up with some value for the supplies portion of books and supplies.”
As colleges finalize their spending decisions, one thing’s for sure: Coaches with generous aid packages will try to use them to their advantage. Those that don’t will find creative ways to deflect attention.
Athletics officials at Arizona State, aware that competitors have larger cost-of-attendance numbers, have created a chart breaking down the differences in average rent and food prices between Tempe and other cities, according to USA Today.
In the cutthroat world of recruiting, those on top are intent on staying there. The Southeastern Conference, whose institutions plan to make some of the most-generous cost-of-attendance payments, has proposed requiring colleges to be transparent about any increases in their figures. (The idea hasn’t gotten very far.)
SEC officials have also discussed whether cost-of-attendance payments should be allocated based on players’ actual expenses, rather than estimates that some colleges appear to pull out of thin air.
Determining out-of-pocket costs would be an “administrative nightmare,” says Mr. Jacobs, of Auburn. “But it’s a great question to ask.”
Beckie Supiano contributed to this article.
