I just spoke on the phone with MSU's SWA, and she confirmed for me what we have been assuming (or maybe already knew) all along.....that there's no national dataset or location to find athletic aid by sport. She said we'd have to inquire to each institution -- some would probably tell us with no problem, and some may not.
But I think the bigger issue for us is really figuring out what it is we're trying to do here. When you think about it -- if our research question is to determine how much of the cost of attendance does an athletic scholarship cover....that answer is going to vary SO MUCH by each institution, by each sport, and even by each athlete .... that it's almost impossible to try to generalize. And if we don't generalize, we damn near have to talk about every single institution, every single sport, and even every single athlete that we study!! And our research question may be a silly one anyway, to the degree that if a sport is a headcount sport, the athletic scholarship in most cases is gonna cover almost every bit of the cost-of-attendance -- at least the stated cost-of-attendance (hence the lingo "full-ride"). And in the equivalency sports, scholarships are almost always divided up among those on the roster (some get what amounts to half-rides, some get quarter-rides, some get what amounts to 10% of their cost-of-attendance, some get what amounts to book money, etc). So the answer to our question in that case is that the athletic aid covers whatever that particular kid is getting (a half-ride should technically cover half the cost-of-attendance). I do realize that it's THAT particular type of situation that motivated the NY Times article and our idea for this in the first place.
But I don't know how we generalize to that, being it's so specific by sport and by school and by athlete!! And if we can't get sport-specific aid numbers, then we really might not be able to do much. Like I said, only hope would be to go school by school. I assume that would require IRB too..... I don't know if we'd need IRB, since it wouldn't be asking any specific student anything. Not sure how that works. And we may not have time for that anyway -- we might have time by November, but not by May 1.... SO PERHAPS we should look big picture here....beyond ASHE. Institutional surveys to athletic departments asking this type of question JUST MIGHT be something that we could get funding for. Maybe even from the NCAA, or some other agency with such interests. As long as somebody else out there has not yet done this research, then we may have a shot at that, especially considering that it WAS in the NY Times recently, it apparently was a shock to many parents out there, schools are feeling more pressure to spend more of their endowments, etc. The timing may be right for such a study in terms of getting support.
Thoughts from any of my favorite ASHE members????? If I'm simply disillusioned, disenchanted, disenfranchised, or any of the other bullshit PC media-friendly terms you can think of for feeling helpless, let me know..... I'll get on board with the rest of you, because I'd like to do SOMETHING in this regard. Because I do think we have something here. But I'm thinking it just may be bigger than what we're thinking right now...but it then may also require a longer time frame than anything substantive by May 1.
Let me know your thoughts....
--The short, bald, bow-legged, pigeon-toed, lactose-intolerant member of the Athletics Blog
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6 comments:
Kyle.
I see what you are getting at... but on the other side of the argument, I do find value in learning if, indeed, it DOES differ by institution and by region. Beyond that, I am not as convinced as you may be that a 1/5 equivalency scholarship for field hockey actually covers 1/5 of the cost-of-attendance. How much does it cover? And, I am also not as convinced that a headcount scholarship covers the full stated cost of attendance. Welch's aim to regionalize this or find out by conference is a useful direction to learn if, indeed, there are regional differences... especially if we look at sport participation numbers/scholarships awarded as you pointed out previously.
Or, if the variance is as great as you state, then noting that as one of our findings would be extremely useful to frame our dialogue.
I think that is what we aim to find out.
Right now, we don't have the time to gather all of the data other than what Welch has provided. But, what Welch has provided is where I think this is a good useful start. We're not proposing a research paper, but rather a symposium.
The point you raise I believe can be one of the tenants in our presentation -- indeed, I can assign you to that in our application and we can further investigate this issue in our application.
Maybe, if you prefer, we should apply for a roundtable session on this than a symposium? Less formal and more roll-up-your-sleeves dialogue?
Let me know what you think....
Colleagues. Bear with me as I ramble here. I have class tonight then hope to tackle some of this into the wee hours....
This is certainly a learning experience for me as I delve into things; Welch, you probably are more up on the history of this than any of us.
However, reading some cost-of-attendance materials from the NCAA and I have some conflicting views. One is that the NCAA has rules in place in an ATTEMPT to make a full grant-in-aid the same as a full cost of attendance... but the NCAA's legal settlement earlier this year clearly notes some exceptions to the rule -- although Myles Brand feels these are relatively few and far between.
Further, while there may be some attempt by the NCAA to mimic federal regulations for cost-of-attendance, to what extent is cost of attendance actually measuring real costs for athletes? There is a laundry list of things that the NCAA includes in cost-of-attendance... but, how should that differ from the regular student; what is missing; etc... That is part of a wider, different issue.
Kyle has a good point that the variation by institution will be significant and that is difficult to measure; however, again --
I see two things: 1. Learning the EXTENT to which colleges are already paying out financial aid to athletes that meets the full obligation of their cost of attendance (compare EADA athletic financial aid dollars to average cost of attendance per student).
This would tell us the extent that colleges are actually meeting cost of attendance figures for athletes at the same rate as the average student.
2. Whether or not colleges are meeting their full scholarship allotment, thus providing as much financial aid as possible (as Kyle suggested: a. see how many scholarships are allotted by NCAA rules per sport (NCAA); b. see how many are actually being given out by sport by school (EADA); and then see if the total athletic grants in aid offered equates to the maximum total potential cost of attendance for athletics.
This would tell us if one college isn't using as much of its potential scholarship allotment as another.
Certainly, value of a scholarship varies greatly by institution. But if we can determine the extent (in %, not in $$$) to which one institution is meeting cost of attendance potential for ALL of its athletes compared to another, then I think this is where we can go.
Gotta run...
If we move forward with ASHE, we can apply for a symposium and a roundtable as a back-up. I do think given the looming May 1 deadline and the amount of work left to do, we might be better having a "roll up your sleeves" roundtable dialogue with a goal to have a more polished product for 2009. Scott, I've emailed you a quick and dirty scholarship lit review.
Troy, thanks. I was remarking with another colleague today that may be the case as well. I'll pull together what I can as well as everyone's primary input and have a draft of an intro/lit review by Friday.
Another note - recall as Welch noted in an email earlier this year that the NCAA will have an academic conference at the 2009 convention. We may want to consider our more polished product for that.
Scott
I am in agreement with the idea of having the roundtable as a backup plan. It seems our deadline is moving faster and faster each day.
I also think we should be mindful that there are additional monies available from the NCAA on a student by student basis (even for those who are considered “full ride”). Special assistance funds totaled $12.3 million in 2006-7 with $7 million for clothing, $2.6 for medical expenses, and $159,000 for emergency travel. The student-athlete opportunity fund exceeded $27 million during the same time frame and went to provide individual computers, summer school tuition, insurance or medical bills, and support for additional educational programs and related expenses. Neither of these funds counts towards or against the student-athletes scholarship amounts. If the costs of attendance were truly covered by an athletics scholarship, many of these items would not be available to “full-ride” students. These additional funds can be critical for the equivalency sports participants, as well as the head count sports participants.
Guys for me, so much of the “size” of this project depends on exactly how many regions/ conferences/ institutions we plan to incorporate into this project, especially if we plan to go institution to institution. I think if we devised a plan for a reasonable (whatever that means) number of institutions this could be completed by ASHE. If we wanted a more far reaching project we should probably consider other presentation opportunities.
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