Although the Ivy lawsuit is from two basketball players (one Male, one female) and OSU’s only option when giving M/W basketball players scholarships is to offer them full COA.
I agree that there is nothing wrong from an antitrust perspective with a school independently deciding to not offer merit/athletic aid. That isn’t what the Plaintiffs allege happened here. After recent NCAA losses, I don’t assume current D3 rules would survive antitrust scrutiny if a case were brought (although, Congress might quickly step in to make an exception if that were to happen).
1 Like
This is one of those lawsuits that strikes me as absurd. The Ivy’s have incredibly generous financial aid policies so for the vast majority of families in the US, the COA will be far lower than most other schools if their children are accepted. Who pays full price at these schools? Children of wealthy families! Cue the crocodile tears that a kid with a family income of $500k is paying full price.
The purpose of anti-trust laws to help consumers have choices and to keep prices from being artificially inflated. For example - there are 1,800 colleges that offer women’s basketball 350 of them in D1. There are plenty of choices and athletes and their parents have a lot of agency in this situation. The schools are transparent about policy - just like the number of D1 schools that do not have the funding for athletic scholarships for many of their sports. If prices are the issue - if you are good enough to get recruited to play at an Ivy League, you probably have the academics to get a generous merit offer at another less selective school or an athletic scholarship if that is what you want or enroll at less expensive institution. Yes, the tuition is ridiculous, but again, who is paying full price? Families in the 1% percentile of US income.
But I think what drives me the nuttiest with all of this - it’s college! The purpose of enrolling in college is for the academics. The sports are an extra to the student’s education. Sports are not central to the mission of any school, and shouldn’t be.
The Ivy League used to have an anti-trust exemption, but it recently expired, so in theory they are more vulnerable now. We shall see.
2 Likes
Understood. But pragmatically speaking, even if this lawsuit caused the Ivy League to remove any wording that prohibits athletic scholarships from their agreement/manual, nothing will change because each Ivy league school could just individually state they have decided to continue offering need based aid only.
Understood, but this wouldn’t be the first time that antitrust jurisprudence has dealt with a “nod, nod, wink, wink” situation.
1 Like
I wasn’t thinking just of basketball, but of the sports that can split scholarships or have non-scholarship athletes playing on the team. I assume the athletes suing represent all athletes in the Ivy league (or at least at Brown), not just basketball.
As a D1 program, Brown would be under those same basketball scholarship rules. Would it give the max athletic scholarships for basketball and then give the rest of the team need based aid? That doesn’t seem fair to the other D1 programs.
Georgetown doesn’t give athletic scholarships but would be allowed to by its conference. Still has to follow other NCAA rules and any rules in its conference. It is no longer the basketball powerhouse it once was so it likely is losing some top recruits to the money offered by other schools. BC, of course, gives out lots of athletic scholarships.
The two plaintiffs have asked for class action status, which hasn’t yet been granted.
Agree.
Georgetown does give athletic scholarships, $7.2M according to the 2021-22 CDS.
2 Likes
“Georgetown does give athletic scholarships, $7.2M according to the 2021-22 CDS.”
I know they don’t for swimming. Does the lawsuit suggest that they are obligated to?
Nothing about Gtown in the lawsuit AFAIK (I haven’t read the whole thing!). Again, I am in the camp that no school can be required to offer merit or athletic scholarships.
1 Like
I know. It was a philosophical question.
I still think this whole thing is ridiculous and that these two student athletes are entitled, ungrateful brats. Probably a bit harsh but it is what is going through my mind.
1 Like
Same. The lawsuit even says both had full ride offers elsewhere. Well, why didn’t they take those?!
4 Likes
The stat I was reading said that Georgetown doesn’t give athletic scholarships, but I think the distinction is that the athletic scholarships it does give are endowed scholarships for a specific sport Maybe the article was making the point that the budget for football or baseball doesn’t have scholarship money in it because that money is already in the endowed scholarship?
I also thought there was a stir up after the varsity blues scandal.
Well…this year…Princeton too.
These athletes made a choice. They weren’t forced to accept admission as athletes to Brown.
4 Likes
The Georgetown website indicates there are currently two endowed scholarships for swimmers/divers.
One. The second is a coaching endowment. Which means one swimmer/diver gets a scholarship and 59 don’t
1 Like
Cornell is playing in the Frozen Four. Several Ivy men’s lax teams are ranked.
The Ivy league is doing just fine in athletics without scholarships. Are the athletes being exploited? I really doubt it. Is it time for the Ivy league to consider athletic scholarships? Maybe. With NIL, with the transfer portal NCAA sports had really changed.
On the other hand, most schools don’t have fully funded athletic programs. Football and basketball? Sure but often the smaller or less competitive programs don’t have scholarships or aren’t funded at the max allowed by the NCAA. But even Texas, which has a ton of money, only has 18? varsity sport while Harvard has about 35. Is Harvard going to fully fund all those sports with scholarships if the Ivy allows them? What about the students who are funded through need based aid, will that count against the number of scholarships allowed?
2 Likes
It more probably means several get partial scholarships, and many do not. There are no details provided.
But, your point is taken.
Both need and merit aid are exempt from counting against scholarship limits.
Not a lawyer and didn’t read the primary sources but I tend to be sympathetic with the athletes bringing these sorts of claims forward.
There’s a long history in the NCAA of anticompetitive practices that limit financial compensation and freedom of movement for athletes. We’re seeing that paradigm shift quite a bit recently as a result of court decisions.
Personally I don’t think the Ivy agreement is the most egregious example but I think cases like these are part of a broader effort.
I don’t think it’ll change much in the Ivy League either way as I don’t think these schools want to get into the athletic scholarship game. But I guess that leads to the question of why they’d need to agree not to do it in the first place.
As far as some of the statements that these athletes chose to go to Brown when they had other options, I’m not clear how that’s relevant to whether a conference or group of schools is agreeing to anticompetitive practices that artificially inflate prices.
2 Likes
I am not sure. The coach specifically said no scholarships. This was to a group, not an individual, so I don’t know how this one scholarship is handled.