Athletic Financial Aid Mechanics

I had wondered that too before my son's NLI last year. My sons was put into a hard actual dollar amount on the NLI.

Son's NLI went as follows....percentage. ...dates 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

 

Financial Aid Agreement

Tuition.....          

Room & Board....

Books......            

Other......             

Total...                x .25% = $$$

 

Half of that amount was taken from tuition each semister. If there is any excess, it comes in the form of a check for other expenses. In our case, he also had an academic scholarship. That money came from the business school and was used to pay towards R&B.

Not sure if that's the way it works elsewhere. I've heard that some schools present % on only the tuition part. That should be clarified during the offer process.

When my son transfered down to a DII, the finacial offer was presented in a dollar amount and athleltic fincial agreement. Not sure if that's the offical term.

My wife handled the financies, but I'm pretty sure that was how it worked.

That is interesting Picked Off. I just thought that they had to convert to a dollar amount. You made a good point, that some schools do the % towards tuition only.  A friend of ours got surprised by that because they didn't ask. In our case they just said we'll see what he gets in academic $, and then athletic $ will cover the rest.  So they never gave us a firm % of athletic $.

 

When my son received the offer from a D2, it was specific $$ amount which was a % of the tuition.

 

TPM's correct on the fees.  You'll be surprised how many fees there are (especially if you are an out-of-state student) and how quickly they add up.

 

In my son's case the scholarship reduced the tuition to about what we would have paid had he been an in-state student.  But the fees were based on out-of-state residency.

Regarding TPM's comment about the scholarship amount being renegotiated each year, here's a reminder that the scholarship rules have changed for the major Division I programs.  Here's a link to an article that I wrote on this topic for our website:

 

http://informedathlete.com/the...caa-di-scholarships/

A kid I know was planning to go to an NAIA school to play baseball. In July before the start of his freshman year, they received the statement which included the cost of room and board. Somehow, they had no idea that was coming and they would have to pay an additional $8,500. He already had a roommate lined up and a housing assignment. How they got within 4 weeks of the start of school, and didn't know how much they were actually going to pay, I have no clue.

 

Kid did not enroll. Attends the local community college and has a part-time job as a stock boy at a grocery store.

 

People don't listen, they hear 50% and have no clue what it covers until the bill arrives. But in this case its not being uneducated, but rather just stupid.

But my point was directed more towards % vs actual $$ amount.

And thanks to Rick for the great info on new scholarship rules.

It may be that they just didn't ask the right questions in order to arrive at a complete understanding of what was offered.

No this is stupid, cant they ask that in writing in NAIA?

 

Also, there are always two sides to every story. Perhaps it wasn't about the money.....

Getting this back on track somewhat, just learned that in DI a coach cany write out the offer after Aug 1st going into senior year.  If true (no reason to doubt it), then I suppose offers after that date often do get detailed out.

 

This still leaves many offers the pre-date the Aug 1st start date.  Is it safe to say all these offers are in fact verbal?  I assume the coach has been done this repeatedly and perhaps can anticipate most questions and maybe head them off by providing the appropriate level of detail upfront.  Safe assumption?

Only speaking from one personal experience:

Son (and parents) were presented a typewritten, no names on it, sheet of paper of what we could expect over 4 years.  It was given to us on an unofficial visit when the offer was made the summer before Junior year.  It was not a contract; no one signed it.

 

We thought the coach may have had several different "options"  printed out so he could decided which one to present based on how the unofficial visit went.  lol

 

Coach's offers are "verbal" if before the NLI period.  It is pretty much the norm these days. Most honor them.  Most.