Athletic scholarship

An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on their ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United States and to a certain extent in Canada, but in the vast majority of countries in the world they are rare or non-existent.

United States

Overview

In the United States, athletic scholarships are awarded to student athletes to help cover college costs. There are full-ride scholarships in team sports and individual sports for high performing athletes, but most schools give partial scholarships in the case of individual sports. Even though individual sports have mostly partial scholarships, they still cover a significant amount of the cost of attending college.
As of 2020, only about 1% to 2% of undergraduate students in bachelor's degree programs were receiving athletic scholarships.

Regulation and organization

In the United States, athletic scholarships are largely regulated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. There is also the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and National Junior College Athletic Association organizations that regulate athletic scholarships.
In 1973, the NCAA split its membership into three divisions: Division I, Division II, and Division III. Under NCAA rules, Division I and Division II schools can offer athletic scholarships to student athletes for playing a sport. However, Division III schools do not offer any athletic scholarships. Generally, larger schools compete in Division I and smaller schools in Divisions II and III. Most schools give offers to eligible students in most circumstances.
Division I football is further divided into the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision. The two differ in several ways:

Postseason system: FBS does not have a national championship officially sponsored by the NCAA. The four-team College Football Playoff, which began with the 2014 season, is operated by the commissioners of the FBS conferences. Most of the college football postseason involves bowl games, both inside and outside the CFP structure. FCS uses an NCAA-operated single elimination playoff, which has involved 24 teams since 2013.
Number of football scholarships: FBS schools are allowed 85 players receiving athletic aid, while FCS schools are allowed 63 scholarships. The wording is a very important distinction for another reason.
Awarding of partial scholarships: Because each player receiving athletic aid for football counts fully against an FBS team's scholarship limit, this effectively means that all players awarded football scholarships at FBS schools receive full scholarships. On the other hand, FCS schools are allowed to divide their 63 scholarships among no more than 85 individual players.

Some schools or leagues permitted by the NCAA to award athletic scholarships nevertheless prohibit them among their students. An example is the Ivy League, which is part of Division I FCS. The three service academies that participate in Division I FBS football are effectively exempt from NCAA scholarship limits because all students at those schools, whether or not they are varsity athletes, receive full scholarships from the service branch that operates the academy.
Institutions that engage in misconduct may be stripped of the ability to award a certain number of athletic scholarships. The ultimate penalty, the suspension of an entire athletic program from participation for a set period of time, is popularly known as the “Death Penalty.” It has only been levied three times against schools now in Division I: against Kentucky basketball in 1952, Southwestern Louisiana basketball in 1973, and SMU football in 1986.
In addition to the regulations imposed by the NCAA on the educational institution, the rules governing the provision of athletic scholarship and financial aid are also exhaustive. As noted above, NCAA bylaws place a cap on the number of student-athletes that participate in a given sport at a particular school, who are eligible to receive institutional aid. Institutional aid is defined as the financial aid granted to a student-athlete by the institution in which they are enrolled Financial aid that has not been provided by the school will render the athlete ineligible, unless the aid is received from a guardian or dependent, it has been awarded for reasons separate from the individual's athletic ability, or it has been provided by a recognized and continuing program that may or may not recognize athletic ability as a major criterion. There is also a limit to the amount of money that may be awarded through an athletic scholarship. Specifically, it must not exceed the cost of the individual's education otherwise it is considered "pay", which violates an athlete's amateur status.
Academic eligibility, in addition to the other requirements mentioned, has been a longstanding issue in the history of college athletics. In order to respond to the lack of national academic standards, the NCAA passed the 1.600 GPA rule in 1962 in order for freshmen to receive athletic scholarships. However, this decision received widespread criticism and was eventually abolished in 1973. In its wake, the American Council on Education presented Proposition 48 to the NCAA conference in 1983. Instead of a minimum 1.600 freshmen GPA, it recommended that for a student to be eligible they must obtain a 2.0 high school GPA, take 11 core high school courses, and score either a 700 on the SAT or a 15 on the ACT. However, just as the 1.600 rule generated controversy, so to did Proposition 48. Joseph B. Johnson, the president of Grambling State University and a representative of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education argued that it " against student-athletes from low-income and minority-group families by introducing arbitrary SAT and ACT cut off scores as academic criteria for eligibility." To address this, the NCAA added a partial qualifier to the suggested guidelines. Thus, under the revision, an athlete who met either the 2.0 high school GPA or 700 SAT/15 ACT score would be eligible to receive a scholarship, but would be unable to practice with or play for the team for one academic year. This partial qualifier was subsequently overturned in 1989 following the passage of Prop 42. However, amendments to Prop 42 restored it after much protest. The newest amendment to Proposition 48, Prop 16, was passed in 1992 and later revised in 2008. As of 2008, under Prop 16, a sliding scale for standardized test scores was expanded to allow for a zero score to be allowed in a test, as long as the high school GPA was sufficient to balance it out. Moreover, the number of core high school courses required was increased to 14.
Once a high school senior is deemed eligible to receive an athletic scholarship for their participation on a sports team, they must then follow a number of explicit steps in order to participate at the collegiate level. In particular, the NCAA mandates that they sign a National Letter of Intent, which is effectively an agreement that binds the student-athlete to institution in which they have chosen to enroll.
Some applicants choose commercial third parties to act as intermediaries which seek out scholarships and facilitate the application process.

Division I

Origin of athletic scholarships in the U.S.

Prior to the late 19th century, college athletics consisted largely of informal gatherings orchestrated by students. The first college meet ever held was in 1852 when crews from Harvard and Yale raced each other in the sport of rowing, while the first college game ever played took place on November 6, 1869, when Rutgers defeated Princeton 6–4 in football. Following this game, a movement swept across American colleges that increased the number of schools participating in athletics. As the popularity of sports grew, colleges also began to actively recruit individuals, as well as to offer scholarships. As early as the 1870s, both colleges and universities were providing financial support and incentives to athletes. It was not an uncommon practice at this time for non-students to participate in order to increase the success of a team. In fact, one story tells of a farm boy recruited to play football at the University of Kansas in 1895. As a result of these practices, numerous concerns were raised, including the desire to regulate college athletics. In 1905, the NCAA was created with the intention of "the regulation and supervision of college athletics throughout the United States, in order that the athletic activities in colleges and universities of the United States may be maintained on an ethical plan in keeping with the dignity and high purpose of education." Right from the start, the NCAA expressed a commitment to preserving both education and amateurism within college athletics. Toward this goal, the NCAA was forced to address student funding, specifically alumni sponsorship. So too was the NCAA forced to address the Southeastern Conference becoming the first conference to legalize athletic scholarships in 1935, a decision widely rebuked at the time. Thus, in 1939 the NCAA delivered a statement which emphasized the amateur status of student-athletes and stated that financial awards would be needs based and independent of the individual's continued athletic participation. Then, in 1950, under the governance of the NCAA, colleges developed the athletic scholarship, as a way to pay prospective student-athletes. As a consequence, prospective students would be awarded financially on the basis of athletic ability. For the next twenty years, there were no limits, as set by the NCAA, on the number of scholarships that an educational institution could award players, as well as no limit on the length of the scholarship term. Moreover, if an athlete withdrew participation from his sport, his scholarship could not be revoked. However, this all changed at the NCAA's annual convention in 1973.