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UA to Pay Stipends to Athletes


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According to the story, there are different amounts being paid by different schools? I thought it was all the same when the NCAA put this into place. If not, I think it has the potential to be able to turn into a competitive advantage if you are one who pays more.

It's based on the actual "cost of attendance" that any student would pay, which is the total of tuition plus room and board. So, according to GT's wonderful story, OU's COA is more than Akron's, meaning either their tuition is higher or their room and board is higher, or both. I may be wrong, but I don't think a school could offer more than their actual COA. Whenever we got the new year's statement for my daughter's school it always included the cost of attendance figure.

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That puts an interesting spin on all of this. So, when we are out there recruiting, OU can say that their payments are higher than Akron? I can see that OU possibly has higher COA than Akron, but in the mind of a recruit, are they just seeing that one school is able to pay more than another?

I didn't know this variable existed.

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It is hard to find stats for MAC institutions, but the stipend amount varies a lot and it does not directly correlate with cost of attendance. For example, Penn State has the largest stipend in the Big Ten @ $4788 and an in state cost of attendance of $34506. Michigan State has the lowest stipend @ $1872 and an in state cost of attendance of $25286.

It is up to each school whether or not they want to pay the full stipend. I believe BG has already gone on the record saying they will not pay the full cost.

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This Inside Higher Ed story says Nick Saban was initially worried that Alabama would be at a disadvantage in the stipend era, so Alabama simply recalculated and came up with a much higher number. You know, costs are so much higher for everything in Alabama and their poor football program needs all the help it can get to be competitive. :lol:

The story also describes how this can actually end up screwing non-athlete students:

... This summer, some institutions adjusted their cost of attendance figures just as those estimates suddenly became useful as a recruiting tool. And financial aid analysts are worried that athletics departments are now improperly influencing those numbers to the benefit of revenue sport athletes, but the detriment of other students.

“It’s suspicious,” said Ellen Frishberg, a former college financial aid director and president of Executive Function, a higher education consulting firm. “Since you have to present the cost of attendance as the same to everyone, increasing it inflates the budgets for the entire population. That creates more financial need, which creates more loan eligibility, which could mean more debt for students, which is a very negative thing. They’re creating a huge amount of unmet need and funding it for some people and not for others.” ...

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  • 2 weeks later...

A school cannot change its cost of attendance on a whim. These are numbers that are sent to the federal government and are used for many purposes. The numbers have been available for decades, long before athletics became involved.

Akron COA $2,520

Ohio COA $2,818

Can't COA $4,250

Toledo COA $3,850

Ohio St COA $2,454

It should be noted that some schools will also pay COI for summer school classes and that COA payments may be taxable.

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A school cannot change its cost of attendance on a whim. These are numbers that are sent to the federal government and are used for many purposes. The numbers have been available for decades, long before athletics became involved.

Akron COA $2,520

Ohio COA $2,818

Can't COA $4,250

Toledo COA $3,850

Ohio St COA $2,454

It should be noted that some schools will also pay COI for summer school classes and that COA payments may be taxable.

These numbers look odd. What does "cost of attendance" actually mean? How is it determined, and how is it relevant to anything other than athletics given the context of the discussion? I know it costs a lot more then $2500 to attend Akron.

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A school cannot change its cost of attendance on a whim. These are numbers that are sent to the federal government and are used for many purposes. The numbers have been available for decades, long before athletics became involved. ...

Right, they can't do it on a whim. But football is not a whim in some quarters like the SEC where it's life or death. So maybe Alabama was just lax for many years before abruptly updating their COA when it became advantageous for football. Maybe they would have never bothered to look if not for football.

How Alabama's cost-of-attendance scholarship jumped 39 percent

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