So am I getting a handle on this?
D3 “shall not award financial aid to any student on the basis of athletics leadership, ability, participation or performance”
So this means that they can get need aid. So is that FM or IM, or I suppose IM on same basis as other students. What if they don’t meet need or define need, can you talk? And you can get merit but it would have to be on academics only, right?
D2 can’t get need aid at all? Only academic merit in addition to athletic merit.
NAIA same as D2?
D2 can get need based aid, however, if athletic scholarship money is awarded, the need based aid will be reduced by an equal amount. Same w/ NAIA.
For D2, the student can accept merit aid and athletic aid from the school. Can also accept federal or state need based aid (pell, SEOG, work study, state grants or merit scholarships like Hope or Bright Futures). Can also accept any school grants that are available to any other student at the school under the same terms. For example, my daughter gets a $1000 per year scholarship for having visited the school before accepting her offer of admission, which is an offer made to all students, not just athletes. Another school gives a $1000 grant to students who fill out the FAFSA by 2/15. Those are okay to stack with merit scholarships and athletic. My daughter has 10 line items of FA offered to her by her school this year, but no need based aid from her institution: merit scholarship, two school grants (available to all students who meet the criteria), federal aid including loans, a state grant, state aid, state merit award, and her athletic awards. She can take outside scholharships that aren’t related to athletics (see below) and even those might be allowed if the coach has room in the team totals.
I don’t think my daughter’s school does it like @takitallin explained. If need based aid is also granted from the school, I was told it would count as athletic aid, against the team total (basically the same amount of money going to the student out of a different pot). For example, DD offered $15000 athletic aid, but instead the school gives $10,000 in athletic aid and $5000 in need based. The coach can’t take that $5000 athletic money that DD didn’t use because she got need money and give it to Jane - the team is still limited to the number of scholarships the NCAA allows for that sport, no matter which pot the money is coming from. Same with outside scholarships that are awarded for athletic achievement. My daughter tried for a scholarship from her h.s. booster club. If she had received it, it would have been counted as if part of an athletic scholarship because it would have been awarded to her for athletic reasons. The team could have been over the limit if the coach didn’t have any ‘room’ in her scholarship maximum. There are complicated rules about students turning down athletic aid, taking need based aid, and then being a walk on to the team. It can be done, but it can be complicated.
NAIA has its own rules.