FORT COLLINS — After years of hard work and grooming talent, the offer comes. The college has reached out to the student-athlete, offering a scholarship to pay for school and the right to continue their athletic pursuit at a higher level. For most, the scholarship represents everything the athlete and their family hoped, but what does it really provide to the athlete?
According to the NCAA — in the form of a full ride — it covers the cost of an education, plus room and board. Yet even schools agree that isn’t the full price of going to college.
“I don’t think anyone can dispute that it costs a lot more to go to college than tuition, fees, room, board and books,” said Christine Susemihl, Colorado State’s senior associate athletic director for internal operations. “Is there a gap? Yeah, there is.”
Susemihl said one only has to go to the university’s website to find the difference. There, one will find the school — using a formula devised by the Colorado Commission for Higher Education — sets the cost of an education and how it differs from actually attending school. But for now, Colorado State and every other institution is following the same guidelines for what they can provide their student-athletes on scholarship.
Most of it comes off without a hitch, and volleyball player Adrianna Culbert said it was beyond what she hoped.
“It honestly is. To me, it’s more than what I thought it was,” she said. “During your freshman year, because you are in the dorms and have your meal plan, you don’t receive anything. Once you move off campus and get your own apartment, you get a stipend. I didn’t realize how much it was. It’s nice, because you don’t have to worry about groceries and gas.”
An athlete’s tuition and books required for classes are covered, with the school billing the athletic department. According to Steve Cottingham, CSU’s senior associate athletic director and chief financial officer, the Ram Club raises $2.2 million on average yearly to help cover costs for the 214.1 scholarships the school awards annually. The rest comes out of CSU’s athletic department budget, which sits just shy of $35 million a year, putting it below the average budget in the Mountain West ($37 million).
On top of that, all scholarships do not carry the same price tag. A Colorado student receiving a scholarship costs the school $22,000, Susemihl said, while an out-of-state student costs $38,200 based on state law.
There is also what the school supplies the NCAA doesn’t include in a scholarship. Naturally, there are the health and athletic training services all athletes require, including nutritionists and psychologists. With every school watching their Academic Progress Rates, educational services are provided that include tutors, help with learning disabilities and computers that may be taken on the road to continue studies, should an athlete not own one. Many of those are available to regular students elsewhere on campus, but at an additional cost.
On road trips, the NCAA allows schools to feed their athletes without restriction to what or how much for the duration of the trip, starting with the report time. In the next week, CSU will also open up a fueling station next to the football weight room, designed to supplement student-athletes after workouts, but not intended to replace meals.
Another perk is fewer student loans. According to US News and World Report, the average student loan debt has now approached $30,000, based on 2013 graduates.
Susemihl said freshman year is easier on the school and the athlete, who is required to live on campus. That year, living and dining arrangements are all handled in the same manner. It is at the end of that year, when many athletes decide to move off campus, the task becomes more difficult and a bit of worrying begins.
If an athlete moves off campus, they receive a stipend to cover housing and food expenses, and Susemihl said that figure — $5,966 for room and $5,384 for food per year — is derived by taking the average cost of housing on campus and the cost of a 21-meal plan. That stipend is divided into 10 monthly payments of $1,137, each deposited in their student account.
“How it works, and they learn this the hard way, all of their scholarship money goes into their student account,” she said. “Every student has an account tied to their student account, so once their expenses are paid and there is extra money in the account, they get a refund for something, then in about two or three days, the university does a direct deposit into that account. Their housing stipend goes into their student account. If they also have parking tickets that are charged to their account, that eats up their money.”
As can a trip to the gas station, the latest video game, a new pair of shoes or a date with the cute coed in chemistry class. Once the money is in the account, it is the athlete’s choice in how to spend it, and sometimes it’s not always on what it is earmarked for — room and board.
While athletes are provided educational tools on budgeting and nutrition, it is why Susemihl said the money is broken up in 10 payments over the course of a year, so that one large sum doesn’t overwhelm the athletes at the start or give them a false sense of financial bliss.
Culbert said budget management is harder than time management, basically because an athlete’s life is planned out for them. She’s also found she not only covered her expenses (she lives with two teammates off campus), but being one of seven children in her family, have disposable income she didn’t have growing up in Michigan.
Feeding an offensive tackle requires more food than that of a tennis player, but the caloric intake of a swimmer isn’t as far off from a linebacker as one might think. Still, the stipend is the same, so making ends meet can be trickier for some than others.
Jake Bennett, a center for the football team, said his scholarship has provided him with what he expected. He said there were certain things he was blind to, but he felt the school did a good job of alerting him to others. He and Culbert said they know of athletes who have run into issues, and Bennett said it generally only happens once. So he’s made sure to not be one of them.
“I mean, we’re given our allotted amount, and it’s sink or swim pretty much,” Bennett said. “Guys can spend it however they want. I know I’m not the best budgeter in the world, but I like to set aside money I know is going to go toward rent, food, utilities and stuff like that. I’m not a big spending guy, but I know I’ll have a certain amount of money if I need to buy something.”
It can even become more complex for those athletes on partial scholarships, CSU’s Shalini Shanker, the associate athletic director for compliance, especially those who qualify for need-based aid offered by the university, but aren’t allowed to accept it under NCAA guidelines. In some instances, academic scholarships can count against athletic scholarships.
Of course, athletes are always free to go find jobs, and Shanker — who must monitor them all — said there are roughly 20 student-athletes currently working. Culbert became one recently, accepting a coaching position with the NorCo Volleyball Club, adding she didn’t realize how much time it would consume.
The NCAA caps an athlete’s time in preparation — practice, conditioning, film study and competition (three hours per) at 20 hours a week, but that doesn’t cover the travel, academic and community service requirements set up by teams.
“It is the time,” Shanker said. “Between traveling, practice and competition, most of them just don’t have time to work.”
The true financial difference between gaining and education and attending school is what helped fuel the push to autonomy by the five major conferences, resulting in the adoption of the cost-of-attendance stipend starting Aug. 1. Not all schools have to adopt it, and Colorado State has not come out publicly with an exact plan, but university president Tony Frank said the school will do what it can to remain competitive.
Susemihl said the school, using a federal equation, has determined the gap to be $2,400 annually for an in-state student, $3,100 for out-of-state. If adopted at Colorado State under any degree (at an estimated cost of upward to $700,000 annually for the athletic department), it will make life easier on the student-athlete.
“Theoretically, do I think it’s the right thing to do?” Susemihl said. “Yeah, because just like we’ve talked about, you move off campus and you get this stipend for room and board, but everybody acknowledges, you can go to the university website, every body acknowledges that the cost of attendance is probably $2,000-$3,000 more than the value of the scholarship.”
Mike Brohard: 970-635-3633, mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard
