<p>Those who follow the Patriot League may be interested in this article. </p>
<p>Football</a> scholarships - Sports </p>
<p>What it doesn't address is: if football athletic scholarships are added, what will that do to the Title IX formulas, and what women's sports will gain athletic scholarships?</p>
<p>The core of the Patriot League is Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, Colgate, Holy Cross, and American, Army and Navy. Georgetown and Fordham participate in football only. Army and Navy do not participate in football.</p>
<p>Ohhh…Villanova is facing a similar situation with their football team being asked to join Big East; lots involved in that decision though. Interesting concept: offer merit-based scholarships only to the football players? What does that do to the pool of merit money available to the non-football players at the school?</p>
<p>wilberry228 – The article is unclear, but what they mean is that if scholarships are offered they will be “athletic merit scholarships,” better known as “athletic scholarships” as opposed to “academic merit scholarships.” Your question as to whether the Patriot League schools would reduce academic merit aid in order to fund athletic merit scholarships is a good one, however. I suspect they will not, at least I highly doubt Lafayette will.</p>
<p>The other unanswered question is how many scholarships will each school offer? FCS programs can offer up to 63 scholarships in football, but there is no requirement that FCS schools offer that many. Many FCS schools already offer far fewer. I think the Patriot League schools will have to come to an agreement on how many scholies are offered if they decide to move forward on this or you could end up with one school (the future perennial League champions) awarding 63 scholarships while another school (the perennial doormat) offering 20 or so.</p>
<p>Update – apparently Bucknell has expanded athletic scholarships in certain sports. </p>
<p>[Scholarships</a> and Grants || Financial Aid || Bucknell University](<a href=“http://www.bucknell.edu/x571.xml]Scholarships”>Theatre and Dance Events at Bucknell | Lewisburg, PA)</p>
<p>I just saw this today.</p>
<p>As an alum of a Patriot League school, I hope that any scholarships would be based on overall merit, of which the athletics are a part (my D is at a DIII school on a scholarship like that). If the scholarships are for athletics only, ie. your “job” is to play basketball for Bucknell or football for Lafayette, then this alum will funnel her donations to her graduate school, where I know the money will go to academic scholarships…</p>
<p>I believe the academic “merit” scholarships at Bucknell are new as well.</p>
<p>On another board (another site) I read that the new Bucknell scholarships are ~ 1 equivalency per sport. One could say it is a start.</p>