Hokies, Others to Offer Stipends

What is the purpose/intended purpose of the stipends?  Is this in lieu of something else?  Instead of "meal money" that is typically issued when traveling?

Not "instead of" anything.  This is additional money.

The stated purpose is to alleviate other costs of attending school beyond tuition and fees, room, board and books.  This would include travel costs and other incidentals, supplies, etc. 

I think it's silly because those are expenses the player would have in life anyway if he weren't in school.  We're going from alleviating the expenses related to school (current) towards covering the costs of living and breathing while playing.  I thought that remained a parent/family thing, but apparently the NCAA thinks all these guys are destitute orphans who cannot even afford toilet paper without the university acting as a welfare agency.

But that's more of a stab at the 100% guys in football and basketball.  For our guys in baseball, it will do a small amount to augment the limits of partial schollys in our 11.7 universe.

I watched ESPNs "30 for 30" about the Boston College basketball "shaving" scandal in the '80s. (Had not heard of it before the show).   Maybe the new stipend will avoid players resorting to dubious activities to supplement their income.

I am not sure about basketball and football players, but is very hard for baseball players to secure employment while playing HS, travel, college, summer ball to help with those extra college expenses. 

I'm trying to understand this. Let's say a baseball player has a 50% baseball scholarship and a 30% academic scholarship. And the stipend amount is determined to be $3,000. Would he get $1,500 ($3,000 x 50%)? 

If he is on a 50% baseball and 50% academic, would he get anything? or would he get same $1,500?

From the article in our RTD, at Virginia Tech for it's 400 athletes, it looks as if the athlete would get the same % of the stipend as his athletic award.  In your example 50% of the stipend amount.

Keewart wrote: I am not sure about basketball and football players, but is very hard for baseball players to secure employment while playing HS, travel, college, summer ball to help with those extra college expenses. 

Agreed.  Or even work during the school year.  Very few baseball players are on a 100% scholly, therefore parents are funding partial tuition as well.

My hunch is that each school (or maybe conference) will handle this differently. The cost of attendance is the figure that schools use when figuring "Need" in the financial aid process. The "Estimated Family Contribution" is subtracted from "Total Cost of Attendance" to determine "Need." They are packaged based on that number. It's an arbitrary number and many private schools will manipulate this number to give the appearance of more aid. 

In the case of athletes, I'm guessing they will use the same formula that the institution uses for financial aid for all students. How they will distinguish between athletic money and academic money remains to be seen...and I'd bet it'll be different at each school.

I am happy to see Va. Tech include the partial scholarship kids in this but it still chaffs me that schools are going to be spending a lot more money in athletic aid...yet baseball is still stuck at 11.7 scholarships. Heck, in the early 90's, there were 13 scholarships for fully funded programs. I hope other schools follow suit and include the partial scholarship kids in this new "stipend."

My bigger fear is the non-Power Conferences will not be able to absorb this added expense and will look to eliminate sports....and baseball is always in that discussion.