Hockey players get NCAA's highest scholarships: NYT

Long story in the Monday New York Times, "College Athletic Scholarships: Expectations Lose Out to Reality," says college sports scholarships are a sucker's game. For every 100 high school students playing sports, there's about one full ride scholarship available in college (1/93 for men, 1/81 for women), and typically that's sliced many ways. So all those years of practice in high school may end up as $2,000 or $5,000 toward a $40,000 room and tuition bill. The average excluding the revenue sports (football, basketball) is $8,700. Makes the Ivies seem competitive after all.

Except for one thing in Cornell's case: The sport where scholarships afford the best shot at a full ride is men's ice hockey. The typical award is $21,755, equal to 80% of a full scholarship. Next is women's ice hockey, 80% or $20,540. Among men's sports, lacrosse is No. 8 in fraction-of-full award, 32% or $8,670. All this is data going back to 2003-2004. You'd think with computers and all, data from 2006-2007 would be available summer 2007, but apparently not.

The paper's quote of the day:

MARGARET BARRY, whose daughter is a scholarship swimmer at the University of Delaware
"People run themselves ragged to play on three teams at once [in high school] so they could always reach the next level. They’re going to be disappointed when they learn that if they’re very lucky, they will get a scholarship worth 15 percent of the $40,000 college bill. What’s that? $6,000?"

The paper didn't analyze Monday whether scholarship in some sports might average out higher because of the competition from the pros (eg hockey) or if therer's a disproportionate number of costly schools among, say, hockey powers. But there's more to come. This was part one of what's going to be a 6,000-word series.

There is a discussion about this on USCHO in the cafe which seems to refute part of the numbers. The number of scholarships they say are awarded is in excess of what is possible, and they also point out that division 2 may skew the other sports downwards. There is also the factor that not very many schools play hockey, and a lot of them are expensive schools and the athletes are almost always out of state if not out of country.

NCAA says colleges can award up to 18 scholarships for ice hockey (for all four classes, not per entering class). It says there 1,089 full-ride equivalents split over 1,369 students. If every college that gives scholarships awards the equivalent of 18 full rides (don't believe that's the case), that'd mean there are 1360/18 or 76 colleges awarding scholarships, which is about 20 more colleges than play D1 hockey. Who knows how many lower-than-D1 colleges award scholarships?

So you've got a good point: Some stats the Times reports may not pass the common-sense test, or at least might have set off some editor's BS detector.

Separately, for kids wanting to latch on in any sport in college, regardless of if there's a scholarship, I believe wrestling had the worst ratio, like 1 in 40 HS wrestlers found a spot on a college team, vs. about (am I recall correctly?) something like 1 in 8 or 1 in 10 lacrosse players.

The MAAC had a 11 scholarship limit. After a quick look I can't tell whether they're still at 11 after the transition to AH, but I'd guess they are. Not every AH school offers scholarships either (HC for one).

I believe DII has a lower scholarship limit, although I'm not sure if there are any DII hockey schools left. DIII doesn't offer athletic scholarships.

So how would Army factor into all of this? Every student there gets a free ride (as long as you temporarily forget about the four year commitment, or is it five or more now). That could toy with the numbers a little since everyone on the roster kinda has a "scholarship".

It's amazing to me to think that some parents can be so in the dark about their financing choices. My boys play travel hockey and soccer purely because they enjoy it and because our family can afford it. While they're both good at it, I have zero expectations other than hoping that they'll have fun with it and all their hard work at a young age may put them in a position to play in high school. Focus on education first and play sports for fun. It's the extremely rare exception that will play D1 athletics on a material scholarship.

My four year old, on the other hand, is destined to play at Cornell or Michigan and then the NHL.

We've got a HS junior where one of his and our ambitions is to find a hockey team - a club team of mixed ability would be okay - where he could continue on in college.

You've got the right attitude - play because it's fun, not because of the scholarship. If you tally up the cost of lacrosse sticks or hockey sticks (perish the thought of using aluminum or wood when composites are available) plus the value of your time ... a piddling $5,000 scholarship gets you back to even on your pre-college investment. The one thing that helps is if the kid can fill out a spot on the team w/ or w/o a scholarship; that's a plus on admission.

One other point about the story. The Times says students see athletes as privileged (not sure if they attributed it or just assumed it) while the athletes see themselves as second-class citizens, forced to not take some classes that conflict with practice, and not having a lot of free time.

pfm10
So how would Army factor into all of this? Every student there gets a free ride (as long as you temporarily forget about the four year commitment, or is it five or more now). That could toy with the numbers a little since everyone on the roster kinda has a "scholarship".

Army's 'free rides' wouldn't be averaged into these numbers for athletic scholarships, just as any other academic scholarship or need-based financial aid package a student athlete may receive isn't considered as well. A fair number of Ivy athletes -- especially at places likes Harvard and Princeton -- are on what is effectively a "full-ride" as a result of need-based financial aid. This is what caused the big discussion a few weeks back, as it may potentially encroach upon parity in the League.

Good point. Then tack this up as another D2 school that needs to take up the slack to prove the article correct.

I've been wondering for several years what playing in the juniors for a year or two between high school and college does to a hockey player's financial status. Might it be enough to establish independence from the family and eliminate their assumed contribution? That would boost the financial aid package under the usual calculations.