Just to clarify, please see below.

You would think this would be an easy question to answer. And it is for NCAA D3 schools since they aren’t allowed to offer any athletic scholarships so the answer is no. As for D1 or D2 schools, if you just stop and think about it a little, you would begin to realize that there’s no way it could possibly have a simple answer.

Why is that? Just imagine if schools could freely give athletes scholarships for academic qualifications instead of athletic abilities. There’s no limit on the number of academic (or merit) scholarships that colleges and universities can award. And there are no minimum qualifications. Schools give out scholarships for music, art, drama, leadership, and community service without demanding excessive academic qualifications.

Surely you can see the issue here. What’s to stop schools from providing all of their athletes with merit scholarships and just skip the limitations of athletic scholarships?

There is something in the NCAA, it’s called Bylaw 15.02.4.3. This rule states that any financial aid except that which is specifically exempted is going to count as athletic aid and make the student a “counter” in terms of scholarships.

Federal and state financial aid based on need is exempted. Academic scholarships for freshman may be exempted if the students meets one of the following conditions depending on the division:

Division 1
◾Top 10% of the high school graduating class
◾Achieve a cumulative high school GPA of at least 3.50
◾Score 1200 or higher on the SAT or ACT sum score of at least 105


Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Does anyone have any experience on how financial aid factors into athletic scholarship money. Is it on addition to or do they factor the scholarship money into the aid package? Any info would be greatly appreciated.


If I understand it correctly, at the D1 level you can not combine athletic scholarship money and need based financial aid (without it counting against the coaches count). If a coach were to combine 50% need based aid with 50% athletic scholarship it would count as "one full scholarship". It would count against the coaches maximum allowable athletic scholarships.

You can combine academic scholarship and athletic scholarship. 50% academic money and 50% athletic money would only count as .5 of the coaches maximum allowable.


That is not what the Coach told us (big 10 school). Said that they were separate. Anyone else have experience here?


They are separate. All three are separate however, you can combine athletic and academic without impacting the coaches count. If you were to combine athletic and need based aid it would impact the count therefore I do not believe most coaches would do it.