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Four Sources of College Money

Before your families can shrink college costs, they need to know what the major sources of college money are for undergraduates and whether their child has a chance to qualify for this money.

Here are the four main sources of scholarships and grants and a recent percentage breakdown of this money:

• Federal government 44%

• Colleges 36%

• State government 9%

• Private scholarships 6%

Many families waste a lot of time chasing the wrong kind of money. Affluent students, for instance, won’t qualify for federal grants, but in some states they may qualify for state grants. Most of them would also be eligible for merit awards from colleges themselves.

Many students believe private scholarships are the major source of college money, but as you can see they represent the smallest source.

Discussion/Questions

Have you had experience with parents and students looking in the wrong places for college money? Please share in the comment box below.

Federal College Aid

The federal government is the source of the largest percentage of college grants. Forty-four percent of grants come from the federal government. Federal money for undergraduates is dispensed to those who have shown they need financial help to attend college.

Pell Grants

The vast majority of this federal money is awarded through the Pell Grant program. The maximum Pell Grant award is $5,775 for the 2015-2016 school year. Students who are eligible for this full grant have adjusted gross family incomes of $24,000 or less.

The larger the family income and the smaller the size of the household, the lower the potential Pell award. According to federal statistics, 92% of Pell Grant recipients have household adjusted gross incomes of under $50,000.

The following chart breaks down what size Pell Grant a family can expect based on their federal Expected Family Contribution:  Federal Pell Grant Award Chart

To obtain a Pell Grant or other federal assistance, a student must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to establish a student’s eligibility.

Federal law limits the number of Pell Grants an undergrad can potentially receive. Qualified students can receive the equivalent of six years of Pell Grant funding over their lifetimes.

You can learn more about Pell eligibility limits here: Pell Grant Limits

Other Federal Grants

In addition to the Pell Grant program, there are more modest federal grant programs. You can find the details about these programs by clicking the links below.

• TEACH Grants

• Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants

• Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG)

You should have your clients pay particular attention to the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) because this money can run out quickly.

Depending on financial need, the FSEOG grants range from $100 to $4,000 a year. If your students have very low incomes, it’s critically important that they complete the FAFSA very quickly and preferably on the first day possible – Jan. 1. (They would have to estimate their taxes to file on this first day that the FAFSA is available.) This FSEOG money can run out very quickly on individual college campuses. In fact at some colleges, students who have a $0 EFC, but don’t file on Jan. 1 or close to it, may not receive any of this grant money at all.

The federal website warns that this money can run out, but it can be shocking to discover how quickly this can happen. Stephanie Hancock, a Certified Financial Planner and a financial aid expert in Los Angeles, told me about a student with a EFC of $4, who got shut out of FSEOG money at Northern Arizona University even though she filed on Jan. 1. The money was allocated to the students who also filed on Jan. 1, but who had an EFC of $0!

Each participating school receives a certain amount of FSEOG funding each year from the federal government and once it’s gone, it’s gone. This is different from the Pell Grant program where eligible students will receive the federal award regardless of when they file for aid.

When A Family Doesn’t Qualify for Federal Grant

Many parents will not qualify for Pell Grant money. It’s also unlikely that most families who seek help from college consultants would qualify for federal college grant, but they can be eligible for other types of federal assistance.

Other Types of Federal Aid

Federal Loans

Families who are shut out of federal grants will qualify for federal college loans since there are no income limits. Without filing the FAFSA, parents and students will not have access to federal student and parent loans. According to the latest statistics, 71% of college students are now borrowing for college.

The best loan for students will be the federal Direct Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans, which used to be called Stafford Loans. The interest rates are lower than students could find elsewhere and they come with a safety net. If students graduate from college and are unemployed or underemployed they could qualify for one of the federal repayment plans that essentially have borrowers repay based on what they can afford rather than what they owe.

The best federal repayment plan, and the newest, is called Pay As You Earn.

The federal loan for parents is called the Direct PLUS Loan, which does not offer attractive rates, but can be the only source of money for some parents after their children tap into the federal Direct Loan program. The interest rate for PLUS Loans is currently 7.21% with a 4.3% origination fee on all borrowed money. The maximum PLUS loan amount that a parent can borrow is the cost of attendance (determined by the school) minus any other financial assistance received. There is no federal repayment program for parents.

I discuss loans in more detail in this module - Borrowing for College.

Work-Study Jobs

Without applying for financial aid, students would not be eligible for campus work-study jobs. On some campuses, most or even all of the student jobs are reserved for students who filed for financial aid.

Students who receive work-study jobs must earn at least the federal minimum wage. Schools typically pay up to half of a work-study student’s salary and the federal government kicks in the rest. In a student’s financial aid award, the school will include the maximum number of hours (it will vary) that the student can work through this program.

Keep in mind that work-study wages are even more valuable because they are exempt from financial aid calculations. Other student earnings, in contrast, can be assessed at up to 50 cents on the dollar for financial aid purposes. So if a child works in the school cafeteria, the money will not be counted for financial aid purposes. If a child has the same job at a pizza place off campus, his or her salary will be counted.

The money for this program is limited and some schools have larger pots of money than others.  Because the money can dry up, it’s important that families file the FAFSA as soon as possible. The work-study awards can be dispensed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Questions/Discussion

Does anyone have questions about federal financial aid?

State College Aid

State aid represents nine percent of the college money awarded in this country. Almost every state education agency has at least one grant or scholarship program available to residents and many have a long list of state aid possibilities, which can create confusion for families.

While there are some exceptions, eligibility for these state programs is usually restricted to state residents attending college within their states. Some state programs are centralized which means the awards are set by formulas on the state level. States that use this system include California, New York and South Carolina.

Other states have a decentralized program - the governments set basic eligibility criteria but they provide the funding to the schools that exercise some discretion when making awards. States in this category include Colorado, Texas and Virginia.

You can find links to the aid programs that are available in the 50 states by visiting the website of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

An easy way to begin getting familiar with state aid practices is to look at a comprehensive report that the Brookings Institute released in 2012 called Beyond Need and Merit: Strengthening State Grant Programs. In particular, you might find helpful the report's inventory of state aid programs that I've included at the bottom of this lesson. After examining the aid practices in the 50 states and the District of Columbia, the institute concluded that 73% of state grants went to students who required financial assistance.

Some states, however, are dispensing most or all of their aid based on such factors as grade point averages and standardized test scores. Most of the states that award the majority of their aid by merit are located in the South and these programs often benefit more affluent students.

States Providing Least Aid to Financially Needy

Here are the states that provide the smallest percentage of their government college grants based on financial need:

• Georgia 0%

• South Dakota 5%

• District of Columbia 6%

• Mississippi 14%

• Louisiana 16%

• South Carolina 19%

• Tennessee 23%

• Florida 26%

• Idaho 30%

• New Mexico 30%

• West Virginia 44%

Of course, you can flip the above percentages to see which states devote the highest percentage of their awards to students who are often better off financially.  In Louisiana, for instance, 35% of students, who captured 45% of all the state grant money, had median household incomes of $80,000 compared with the statewide median income of $45,433.

Students who qualify for these state-based merit scholarships won't necessarily hold onto them. According to the Brookings report, about two-thirds of merit scholarship recipients in Georgia and 40% in Kentucky lose their scholarships after the first year because they don't maintain the necessary grade point averages.

States Providing Most Aid to Financially Needy

Families with low and moderate-incomes are more likely to benefit if they live in states where all or the majority of state money is based on the financial need of the household. With the exception of Texas, the states that devote all or nearly all of their aid to those who have demonstrated financial need are above the Mason-Dixon line.

Here are the 22 states that allocate at least 95% of state aid to those who require financial assistance:

• Alaska

• California

• Colorado

• Connecticut

• Delaware

• Illinois

• Indiana

• Kansas

• Maine

• Maryland

• Michigan

• Minnesota

• Nebraska

• New Hampshire

• New York

• Oregon

• Pennsylvania

• Texas

• Vermont

• Washington

• Wisconsin

• Wyoming

State Map of Financial Aid

Look at the Brookings Institute map to get a bird’s eye view of which states devote most of their money to need-based aid (darkest blue) versus merit aid.

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With this link, you'll access the map and be able to see information on grant programs by clicking on any individual state.

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Not Enough State Money

The percentage of state money that goes to students who need a helping hand doesn’t tell the full story.

For instance, Texas only funds a fraction of the students who are eligible for TEXAS Grants because of limited funds. Other states, such as Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon and North Carolina, also limit access to their money by dispensing money on a first-come, first-served basis. If your families hope to receive merit or need-based state grants it makes sense to find out what the application requirements are and apply at the earliest possible date. That will mean submitting the FAFSA as soon as possible after Jan. 1, which could mean filing the FAFSA with estimated financial figures.

Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania are rare examples of states with large need-based grant programs that fund all eligible students.

Here’s another reality: in some states that devote their funds to needy students, the average grant is very low. Alaska and New Hampshire fall into that category. New Hampshire and Michigan are in the worst possible category: high tuition/low financial aid states. In other words, the tuition at state universities in Michigan are higher than average, but the financial awards are lower than average.

Alaska, as well as Utah, is in the low tuition and low aid category. New Jersey and South Carolina fit into the high tuition and high aid category while West Virginia and Louisiana’s policies are characterized as low tuition/high (merit) aid.

What is painfully clear is that the states aren’t doing enough to support their higher-education systems, which is making the cost of college more expensive for all students heading off to state universities.

Cutting Costs Through Education Compacts

One way to cut costs is to look for reciprocal agreements that lower the price for eligible students interested in attending public universities beyond their state borders.

Your clients might be able to capture a discounted price or in-state tuition if your state maintains a reciprocal agreement with its neighbors. States commonly maintain reciprocal agreements with public colleges and universities in other states. Some of these compacts are large and involve many states in a region, while others are quite small.

Some compacts can involve just a couple of states or counties within states.  Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, for instance, maintain a reciprocal agreement with each other, as does Minnesota and North Dakota. The University of Minnesota maintains reciprocal agreements with North and South Dakota, Wisconsin and the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Some colleges and universities will offer in-state tuition border waivers to nonresidents in specific counties. The University of Cincinnati, for instance, offers in-state tuition to students from certain counties in Kentucky and Indiana. Here's another example:  the University of Louisville in Kentucky maintains an agreement with Indiana counties that are close to the Kentucky border. Eligible Indiana residents pay in-state tuition while attending Louisville.

Some state universities in Texas provide border waivers to students who live within 100 miles of the Texas state line. The University of Memphis gives border waivers to students who live in certain counties in Mississippi and Arkansas. The University of Utah provides in-state tuition to students attending certain high schools in Nevada and Wyoming. To find more examples, Google border waiver and university or reciprocal agreement and university.

There are countless examples around the country of these piggy-back arrangements. Schools won't necessarily advertise these arrangements so you should ask.

Why would states cut the price for outsiders? Money is one motivator. If reciprocal agreements are in place, a state might not have to worry about offering its own students, for instance, a school of architecture, optometry or forestry. Instead of spending the money on these majors, a state can reach a deal with a neighboring state.

Reciprocal Example

That’s exactly the sort of agreement that the states of Kansas and Missouri reached many years ago. My alma mater, the University of Missouri, has a dentistry school, but the University of Kansas doesn’t. KU, however, has a School of Architecture, but Mizzou doesn’t. Consequently, Missouri architecture students can pay in-state tuition at KU and Kansas dentistry students enjoy a lower price at Mizzou.

Regional Reciprocity Compacts

Large groups of states have also entered into regional reciprocity agreements. Keep in mind that not all state universities are involved in these compacts. In the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE), which includes schools from 15 states, some premiere state research universities such as the University of California campuses, University of Washington (Seattle) and University of Colorado (Boulder) don't participate. Participating WUE schools won't always offer the full range of majors to outsiders receiving a discount through the program.

Getting accepted into a school in the compact doesn't automatically mean the student will get the reduced price. In the Western Undergraduate Exchange, for instance, schools can accept students based on their GPA and test scores. And your clients should make it clear when their child is applying that they want the reciprocity rate. There can also be earlier deadlines for WUE eligibility.

Here are major regional compacts across the country:

Southern States

Academic Common Market

This program provides tuition discounts for more than 1,900 academic programs in Southern states.

Member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Texas, Florida and North Carolina only participate through their graduate programs.

Regional Contract Program

This program allows qualified students to pursue a health degree in fields such as dentistry, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and veterinary medicine, by paying in-state tuition at participating public universities and reduced tuition at private universities.

Member states: Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Midwestern States

Midwest Student Exchange Program

The public institutions that participate in this compact will charge students no more than 150% of the in-state resident tuition for specific programs. Private institutions offer a 10% reduction on their tuition rates.

Member states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and Wisconsin.

New England States

New England Regional Student Program

This program allows New England residents to enroll in out-of-state New England state universities with a tuition discount. Students are eligible to enroll outside their state at a reduced price if they have selected a major that is not offered by public colleges and universities in their home states. More than 700 undergraduate and graduate programs are offered through the region's 82 public colleges and universities.

Member states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Western Undergraduate Exchange

Participating state universities will provide nonresidents with a tuition rate that is no more than 150% greater than the in-state rate.

Member states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

Professional Student Exchange Program

In 10 Western states, students in 10 professional healthcare fields program receive admission preference and most students will pay resident tuition at public institutions or reduced standard tuition at private schools. The fields of study are alleopathic medicine, dentistry, occupational therapy, pharmacy, physical therapy, physician assistant, podiatry and veterinary medicine.

Western Regional Graduate Program

This program enables nonresidents to enroll in available graduate programs outside their home state at resident tuition rates.

Questions/Discussion

In the reply box below, please share any aspects of your own state's financial aid and merit aid practices.

Private Scholarships

Millions of parents believe that private scholarships are the largest source of college money. When many parents contemplate how they are going to pay for college, they envision their children hustling for private scholarships that are offered by foundations, charities, companies and civic groups.

Private scholarship, however, represent the smallest source of college money. For most students, it’s likely that the other chief sources of college aid – from state and/or federal agencies and the colleges themselves - will provide much greater financial help.

There is, however, roughly $11 billion a year available in private scholarships that students can potentially earn. Here are a dozen things you should know about private scholarships:

1. Don’t count on the name-brand scholarships.

The competition for nationally known private scholarship such as the Gates Millennium Scholars, Dell Scholars and the Intel Science Talent Search is fierce. The Coca-Cola Scholars, for instance, received 112,000 applications in 2012 for its 250 awards. This makes Coca-Cola Scholars about 25 times as selective as Stanford.

2. Look for scholarships locally.

Children will face better odds if they focus on capturing local scholarships. These are the scholarships that turn up through your high school counselor’s offices, libraries, parent workplaces, or in the local paper’s community section.

They aren’t as easy to find so not as many students will be applying. In fact, national scholarship sites like Fastweb, and the College Board’s search engine usually don’t have these local contests in their databases.

3. Know the drawbacks of college search engines.

In the fall of 2013, Kim Clark, a friend of mine, wrote a Money magazine article that revealed how flawed private scholarship search engines are.  Clark recruited teenagers to test out 10 popular scholarship search engines including:

• Fastweb

• Cappex

• Zinch

• College Board

•

The magazine was interested in discovering how helpful the sites were by measuring such things as mismatches vs. promising matches that they generated for users. The results were dreadful. For instance, 40% of the first 20 scholarship suggestions that the College Board website generated were mismatches.  None of the first 20 suggestions that Fastweb produced were deemed promising.

To learn more, here is Clark’s article: Nab More Cash for College.

4. Be aware of the financial aid trap.

Students who win private scholarships are often surprised to discover that their awards end up reducing their financial aid package. Since students have to report all outside scholarships to the financial aid offices, many schools see this as an opportunity to save some money and reduce the amount of the money they awarded the student.

In cases where the amount of the scholarship would push the total financial aid award to over the cost of attendance for the school, the federal government requires schools to adjust the financial aid award. You can't receive more money than it would cost to go to school.

If a teen wins a private scholarship, the college could shrink his or her financial aid package by the amount of the award. So if a child wins a $3,000 scholarship, the college could cut the aid package by $3,000. In the best-case scenario, the school will reduce the loan portion of the package by the amount of the outside scholarship, but it can shrink the grant or reduce both the grant and loan portion.

Each school maintains its own policy on how it applies an outside scholarship to a student’s financial aid package. You will have to check with each school for its policy regarding outside scholarships.

Ironically, the scholarship practice will not affect the students most in a position to afford college. Affluent students who receive merit scholarships from their schools don’t have to worry about outside scholarships shrinking their awards.  Higher-income students, who don’t qualify for financial aid, can earn any number of outside scholarships and it won’t jeopardize their institutional merit scholarships.

5. Use the scholarship search engine for institutional scholarship.

Students are more likely to encounter luck with talent scholarships if they use 's scholarship search engine that assists you in looking for institutional merit scholarships. Unlike private scholarship search engines, only provides hits to talent and merit scholarships that individual schools offer.

Schools will routinely provide any eligible merit scholarships to their accepted students automatically. All students have to do is fill out the admission applications to qualify. MeritAid does include these scholarships, but the site will also alert you to institutional awards that can require a separate scholarship to win. Schools award these scholarships for such talents as leadership, volunteerism, artistic and musical ability, entrepreneurship, writing and much more. Some schools also award separate scholarships for particular majors such as philosophy, engineering and nursing. These scholarships often have far less competition than outside scholarships.

On , you can type in the name of any school and see a list of scholarships it offers with a link to a description of each award.

6. Apply for scholarships that require an essay.

Students tend to dismiss competitions requiring the submission of art, poetry, or writing, which can make the odds of winning better. The Wow Writing Workshop, an excellent resource for learning how to craft better college essays, maintains a list of private scholarships that require an essay.

7. Volunteering increases scholarship chances.

Many private scholarship providers include a requirement that recipients be engaged in volunteer activities. Sponsors often would rather see a student who sticks with one volunteer activity for a long time than one who hops around to various charities.

8. Pay attention to deadlines.

Some of the biggest scholarship jackpots impose fall deadlines. In addition, one of out four private scholarships listed with the College Board has February deadlines.

9. Look for scholarships on Twitter.

Use Twitter hashtags such as #scholarships, #meritscholarships, #financialaid and #privatescholarships. When teenagers find people who are providing valuable information about scholarships, they should start following them. Also check to see whom these people are following.

10. Check scholarship expiration dates.

Most of the scholarships will only last for one year. Students will have to repeat this process every year to find new scholarships. Pay attention to scholarships that are multi-year or allow you to apply and win more than once.

11. Be organized.

To get the most out of private scholarships, students need to be organized and apply for as many as possible. That means track deadlines, requirements, and recommendations in one place. Students need to give themselves time to write the essays and try to ask for any letter of recommendations at one time.  Western Michigan University has a scholarship-tracking grid and the University of Phoenix has a spreadsheet you can download to track scholarships.

12. Read up on private scholarships.

If you’d like to learn more about private scholarships, a handy resource is a slim book with an ugly cover, Secrets to Winning a Scholarship, that Mark Kantrowitz, one of the nations most respected financial aid experts, wrote in 2011.

Further Reading:

Outside Private Scholarships

7 Things You Need to Know When Looking For Private Scholarships

Scholarship Search (CareerOneStop) Sponsored by U.S. Department of Labor

Discussion/Questions

In the reply box below, please share is the teenagers that you've helped had any success in winning private scholarships?

Athletic Scholarships

Do you work with parents who hope their children will someday win an athletic scholarship?

Some of the parents who are dreaming of sports scholarships have children who are only in grade school and middle school. Even my own sister, whose daughter is 12, believes that a soccer scholarship is in her future.

The reality is that athletic scholarships aren't nearly as plentiful or as lucrative as many families assume. About 2% of high school seniors win sports scholarships every year at NCAA institutions.

Athletic scholarships are typically not as generous as regular financial aid or merit scholarships that student athletes can earn.

Whether a child will qualify for scholarship money will depend on many factors. What follows are some of the things that you need to know about athletic scholarships.

Understand Where the Money Is 

There are six NCAA sports where athletes have the best chance of receiving a full-ride award. They are found within the Division I schools, which tend to offer the biggest sports programs or which aspire to have a national reputation.

A full-ride scholarship in the NCAA system covers tuition and fees, room, board and required course-related books.

Head-Count Sports

The best chance for a full-ride athletic scholarship is to compete in one of Division I's head-count sports. An athlete who competes in one of the six head-count sports will either capture a full-ride or nothing. Here are the six sports and the total number of scholarships:

Men’s Sports

• Football  (85 scholarships)

• Basketball (13 scholarships)

Women’s Sports

• Basketball (15 scholarships)

• Tennis (8 scholarships)

• Gymnastics (12 scholarships)

• Volleyball (12 scholarships)

In Division I men’s basketball, for instance, 13 athletes will capture a full-ride, and the other players are out of luck – they won’t receive any athletic money. That’s the rule whether you are a Division I basketball powerhouse like Duke and Kansas or below-the-radar schools like Nicholls State and Western Illinois universities.

Equivalency Sports

The NCAA considers all other collegiate athletic programs equivalency sports.

The NCAA dictates the maximum number of scholarships allowed per sport, but full-rides aren’t required. Unlike head-count sports, coaches in the equivalency sports can divide up their scholarships to attract as many promising athletes as they can. Slicing and dicing scholarships often leads to meager awards. Small sports scholarships may only cover the cost of books!

In Division I men’s swimming/diving, for instance, there are a maximum of 9.9 equivalency scholarships. Division I women’s field hockey and lacrosse each have 12 equivalency scholarships. To attract more students, a coach with 10 scholarships might divide them up so that two-dozen students or more receive something. A top prospect, for example, might receive close to a full-ride, but that would leave less money for the coach to entice other recruits to the team.

Important: The vast majority of Division I sports teams do not offer the maximum amount of scholarship money permitted because they can’t afford the cost.

Athletic Scholarships by Sport

Here is the breakdown of the maximum Div. 1 and Div. II scholarships allowed by sport:

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 Breakdown of NCAA Schools

Three athletic divisions exist within the NCAA. Here is a snapshot:

Division I

Division I schools generally have the biggest student bodies, manage the largest athletics budgets and offer the largest number of scholarships. With nearly 350 colleges and universities in its membership, Division I schools field more than 6,000 athletic teams.

Division I is subdivided based on football sponsorship. Schools that participate in bowl games belong to the Football Bowl Subdivision. Those that participate in the NCAA-run football championship belong to the Football Championship Subdivision. A third group doesn’t sponsor football at all. The subdivisions apply only to football; all other sports are considered simply Division I.

Here is a list of Division I schools.

Division II

There are nearly 300 schools in Division II and they tend to be regional public universities and private universities.  Division II programs can't offer as many scholarships as Division I and all the athletic scholarships are classified as equivalency awards.

For example, a Division II football program can give out the equivalent of 36 full scholarships while Division I schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision can offer 85. Division II schools are prohibited from requiring their athletes to devote as much time to training as Division I schools.

Here is a list of Division II schools.

Division III

More than 170,000 student-athletes at 444 institutions make up Division III, the largest NCAA division both in number of participants and schools. Many of the schools in this division are private colleges and universities including many of the nation's most elite schools. Prominent Division III schools include Washington University in St. Louis, Tufts University, University of Chicago, Amherst College and Pomona College. Exceptions are the Ivy League institutions that are in Division I, but they do not give out athletic scholarships.

Division III schools don’t provide athletic scholarships, but the vast majority of them give out merit scholarships, which are usually larger than athletic awards. It’s typically easier to get on a team in a Division III school than a Division I and the intensity of the programs aren’t as great. While athletes at Division I schools are essentially employees of the institution, Division III athletes have the freedom to pursue other interests, to study abroad and to major in whatever they like.

Here is a list of Division III schools.

Other Sources of Athletic Scholarships 

National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics

Outside the NCAA, nearly 300 colleges and universities are members of the lesser-known National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The vast majority of NAIA institutions are smaller private schools, which offer athletic scholarships.

Here is a list of NAIA schools.

National Junior College Athletic Association

The National Junior College Athletic Association is an association of community college and junior college athletic departments throughout the United States. Many of the schools in the NJCAA, which are divided into divisions, offer athletic scholarships. California state community colleges are not in the NJCAA and have their own organization, California Community College Athletic Association. Public community colleges in California are not allowed to offer athletic scholarships. 

Here are the lists of Division I schools, Division II schools and Division III schools within the NJCAA.

Average Athletic Scholarship Amounts 

A wonderful source for statistics on athletic scholarships is . In this chart below from , you can see that the average scholarship amounts are significantly smaller outside of Division I programs for men and women.

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Also on , you can check what the average athletic scholarships are at individual Division I schools throughout the country. Below I share a screenshot of the schools at the top of the alphabetical list.

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Know Academic Qualifications

If you have a student interested in competing in Division I or Division II, he or she must register with the NCAA Eligibility Center. There are academic requirements to be eligible to play in these two divisions. They can't play in Division I or II sports or receive a scholarship without registering and being cleared to play. A website called provides a good explanation of the NCAA Eligibility Center.

Here is further information from the NCAA itself:

• NCAA Eligibility Center Quick Reference Guide for Division I

• NCAA Eligibility Center Quick Reference Guide for Division II

Be Realistic About Athletic Abilities 

Parents often overestimate their teenagers’ athletic abilities. When students aim too high, they will be wasting their time. It's easier to judge whether a child has a realistic change of playing at the various collegiate levels when it's a timed sport like swimming and track and field. Students and parents need to do their research to determine what athletic abilities it takes to play in a particular sport in college.

Here is an example from , a recruiting site, of what it takes for a male soccer player to be an attractive prospect in each of the three divisions:

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Don't Wait to Be Discovered

Except for the true superstars – and there aren’t many of them – teenagers can’t wait for coaches to discover them. Student athletes often believe that they will be discovered if they compete at showcases or tournaments, but that’s often not the case.

Students should reach out to coaches on their own. NCAA rules generally prohibit coaches from contacting high school students directly before July 1 between their junior and senior year in high school. A few sports have different start dates. Teenagers, however, can contact coaches at any time.

Club and high school coaches can also act as an intermediary. A college football coach, for instance, might ask a high school coach to let a talented wide receiver, who is a freshman, know that he’d like to talk to him.

Teens who are interested in Division I sports, should consider reaching out to coaches no later than their sophomore year. Students should initially express their interest in an email. Here is what the email should include:

• Name

• Sport position

• Sports highlights/awards

• Available sports statistics

• Relevant physical characteristics

• Year of high school graduation

• High school name

• Contact information for high school and club coaches.

When coaches express interest, a student should make sure to periodically update them. In the next lesson, Avi Stopper of discusses in a video interview how to nurture a relationship with a college coach.

Create Some Buzz

A great way that students can boost interest among coaches is to create an online athletic profile. The majority of college coaches say that their recruiting process starts online. There are many online recruiting sites where students can create a profile for free or for very little cost. Students can then send coaches links to their sites. Information athletes should include in their materials would be such things as a bio, relevant sports stats, coach recommendations, upcoming game schedule and video clips.

Riki-Ann Serrins, a former women’s soccer coach at Georgetown and Tulane, once told me that coaches typically only need to see seven to eight minutes of action. The video clip doesn’t have to be a professionally done. In fact, Serrins suggests athletes can even use their phone to record it. They can upload their video on YouTube or a recruiting site and then send coaches the link.

Don't Believe Everything Coaches Say

Coaches may tell teenagers that they have lots of scholarship money to divvy out, but prospects shouldn't assume that they will be the recipients. I received this advice once when I interviewed Karen Weaver, who is a member of the sports management faculty at Drexel University, a television sports broadcaster and a former field hockey coach at several schools including Williams College and Ohio State.

A coach might not know whether he wants a particular athlete until he finds out whether other prospects want to be on his team. What really matters is the scholarship amount contained in the school's official athletic grant-in-aid form. "Until you get the grant-in-aid form, it's meaningless," said Weaver, who is a former national championship Division I field hockey coach.

Also keep in mind that a coach's verbal commitment to an athlete is MEANINGLESS. Among highly competitive programs, some coaches are now offering verbal commitments to talented kids as young as middle schoolers, but there is absolutely no guarantee that a child who verbally commits to a team will end up on it. A coach can change his mind about a prospect and so could the child who couldn't possibly know what he or she wants when that young.

The New York Times wrote the following front-page article earlier this year regarding the collegiate recruiting of younger children:

Committing to Play for a College: Then Starting 9th Grade

I liked the blog post that someone at , a recruiting site, published in reaction to the outrage generated by the NYT article:

Criticism for Early Recruiting Missing the Mark

Don't Spend Lots of Money on Athletic Recruiting Service.

Serrins and Weaver both told me that spending thousands of dollars on recruiting services in hopes of getting an athletic scholarship is a waste of time. "A lot of coaches think they (recruiting firms) are pests," Serrins said.

What’s ironic about the rise of these recruiting middlemen, Weaver says, is that coaches largely think the recruiters are a nuisance. “Coaches really don’t want recruiters getting into the middle,” she says.

Families often feel compelled to sign up with a recruiter because everybody else is doing it and nobody wants to get left out. As a practical matter, these recruiters can’t possibly know the athletic needs of sports programs across the country. And if they suggest otherwise, they’re lying.

Athleticism can be a hook

Being an athlete can boost a teenager’s admission chances because all schools, regardless of whether they offer scholarships, desire strong sports programs. The child doesn’t have to be a superstar athlete to increase his or her chances of admission. And the child doesn’t need to capture a sports scholarship to ultimately make their college tab more affordable.

Being a gifted jock dramatically improves a child’s odds of getting into some of the nation’s most elite colleges. At Ivy League schools, recruited sports candidates are four times more likely than other applicants to be accepted, according to Reclaiming the Game: College Sports and Educational Values, a book co-authored by William G. Bowen, a past president of Princeton University. Robert Malekoff, a former associate athletic director at Harvard University and a past women’s soccer coach at Princeton, concurs. Sports also give students an admissions edge at other highly selective schools, he told me.  “There is no question that there is an admission advantage for students who play sports,” Malekoff says.

You should never discount the level of competition between elite schools and their athletic departments, says Ellen Staurowsky, professor and program director of sports management at Drexel. “Even though there are no formal athletic scholarships, there is always a feeling that another institution may be out-recruiting yours because they are more generous about giving assistance.”

Understand that Athleticism Won’t Make Up for Poor Grades

A downside of focusing on sports scholarships is that it encourages students to spend more time on their sport than their grades. Kris Hinz, an independent college counselor, once shared with me her experience with high school athletes that nicely sums up the problem. Here is her observation:

In my practice, parents often apologize about their kid’s grades, then quickly say, “But he’s a great athlete and we’re hoping that can be his ace in the hole.” They are hoping that his athletic prowess will get him accepted and get him money! A tall order! They are usually wrong on both counts. And the worst part is, all the time that has been devoted to sports has siphoned off time that could have been spend studying to earn a strong GPA.

Division I Athletics Could Impact A Child's Major

Are you helping any teenagers who hope to major in premed or engineering? Athletes competing in Division I sports won't always get the chance. Division I athletics can be so time consuming that students often can't major in a science, engineering or in other time-intensive fields. One survey indicated that one out of five athletes don’t major in their first academic choice. A few years ago, a USA Today investigation at 142 institutions with top sports programs revealed that many of the athletes participating in football, baseball, softball, and basketball programs were clustered into certain majors. For instance, 82% of the juniors and seniors on Georgia Tech’s football team shared the same major — management.

Some schools push students to select majors that aren’t as intensive, such as interdisciplinary studies. At the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, some athletes major in “university studies.”

Here is an article that focuses on the time issue for athletes:  Do College Athletes Have Time to Be Students?

Look for academic fit first.

Families often end up shopping for athletic scholarships rather than looking for schools that represent good academic fits.  I’d recommend that help families first identify schools that would be a match academically and then inquire about the sports. Getting a college education is obviously more important than playing a sport.

That’s the route we took when my daughter Caitlin, a soccer player, was looking at liberal arts colleges which were all Division III schools. When we visited the schools, we made sure that we also visited with each soccer coach.

Three years out of college, Caitlin continues to love and play soccer in San Diego sometimes on multiple teams in a season. She was even approached by a semi-pro soccer team about playing, but she's too busy for that.  I assume that soccer will be a lifetime passion for her.

Learn More...

College Planning Guide for Student Athletes

13 Links on Articles About Athletic Scholarships

The Difference in Recruiting a Five-Star Athlete and a No-Star Athlete

Guides for Individual Sports

Here are some resources for specific collegiate sports.

Divers to College

Lacrosse Recruiting Resources

Baseball Recruiting Resources

Softball Recruiting Resources

Guide to Tennis on College Campuses

U.S. Water Polo

Water Polo Planet: The Alternative Voice

 Questions/Discussion

Can you share any experiences that student athletes have had pursuing athletic scholarships?

I'd like to add to the above list of resources for individual sports that I started. Please share any resources on specific sports that you know.

Advice on Athletic Recruiting

In you are interested in athletic recruiting, please watch this video that I recorded with Avi Stopper, a former college athlete and a co-founder of CaptainU, which could be called an athletic LinkedIn that helps student athletes to connect with athletic coaches.

 

I recorded it on Spreecast and I experienced difficulty posting on this lesson (no idea why) so you'll have to watch it via this link.

Stopper, who is a former men's soccer coach at the University of Chicago, launched CaptainU when he was in the school's MBA program. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of high school athletes, college coaches, youth coaches, and events have used CaptainU to get organized, promote themselves, and get noticed by others in the youth and college sports world.

Major Take-Away Points

Here are a few of Stopper's main take-home points during the interview.

Rather than focusing upfront on athletic scholarships, student-athletes need to look for schools that would be good fits academically and socially.

Students should ask themselves this question: If I broke my leg and couldn't play my sport anymore, would this be a school I'd want to attend?

A student shouldn't bring up athletic scholarship right when meeting or exchanging emails with a coach. That's a turn off. The teenager needs to know more about the program and the coach needs to know more about the athlete before scholarships are broached.

Students should not ignore Division III schools even though they don't offer athletic scholarships. Merit scholarships and financial aid from Division III schools often exceed what many students will get from athletic scholarships.

Top players are on Division I teams, but as you start to move down the Division I ranks, there is a lot more parody between some mid-tier Division I teams and some of the top Division II and Division III teams.

At the bottom of this lesson, you will find a transcript of the 40-minute interview with Avi Stopper.

Athletic Scholarship Odds

During our conversation, Stopper suggested that parents and student athletes should read a sobering 2008 story that ran in The New York Times regarding athletic scholarships. Here is the link:  Expectations Lose to Reality of Sports Scholarships

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