Funding Student-Athlete Stipends Adds to Northwestern's Costs
As schools all over the country are beginning to address whether or not they have the financial support to fund the full $2,000 cost of living stipends recently approved by the NCAA Board of Directors, even some schools at the BCS level are finding that they may struggle to support the stipends. While some conferences are getting involved and either mandating the stipends, or prohibiting them, the decision will still come down to the individual schools in most cases. Bigger schools have more revenue streams from a variety of sources, but the proposition of adding several hundred thousand dollars to the budget is not something to glance over. In order to receive the stipends, a student must already be on a full scholarship and bigger schools also have more students on the full ride scholarships, meaning more costs associated with the stipends. While the cost implications are certainly a major factor when looking at the stipends, there can also be potential Title IX implications as well, something this article touches on as well. That is going to depend on what prong a school is using to comply with Title IX, but issues can certainly arise if a school is looking to add the stipend for many of their male athletes on full rides; doing that may certainly mean that the school will need to provide the stipend to at least a portion of their female athletes on full scholarships.
President Emmert is quoted in the article as saying that fine tuning of the BOD legislation that was passed will take place over the coming years, which is a reversal of how the NCAA legislative process normally works. It will certainly be interesting to see what, if any, modifications are made to the financial aid and eligibility issues as we move towards these being implemented across the NCAA membership.
