Starting this so as not to clog up the acceptance thread . . .
Big money football schools often also give big money for academics (see Alabama, Ohio State, etc). I’m sure more kids are helped that way. After all football scholarships are limited to 80 out of some 30-40,000 students. That’s a drop in the bucket and is not taking money away from music. Those programs support scholarships for non-revenue sports like women’s crew and softball. As the NCAA ads point out (or at least PAC-12) most college athletes are going pro in something else and really do need the education. For most the scholarship or partial scholarship (which = most sports money) helps to pay for their academic and career goals outside of sports.
I would bet that no music school can give full support to all students (except Curtis) and there are funded kids and not-funded kids just like there are walk-on football players. Like with music, most D1 collegiate athletes are only getting partial funding if they are funded at all.
Curtis does not give full support–only free tuition. Colburn gives full support.
I have to quibble with the statement that OSU gives big money for academics. They are nowhere near as generous as Bama, unfortunately. For in-state kids, typically the most merit you can get is 6K per year.
OK - I have a good friend whose in state daughter has VERY good academic aid at Ohio State. She was lured away from a large need plus special writing scholarship at Kenyon with the great OSU package. I also have a friend whose son has a fully funded MD/PhD program. Full tuition at Curtis is still a lot and the value is certainly more than the value of a full ride at a state public D1 football University. The value of a “full ride” at the University of Washington is about 24k per year which is a drop in the bucket for conservatory tuition.
It’s apples and oranges though. Tough to compare a D1 flagship with NEC or Mannes. When it gets down to LACs there is academic merit money AND music merit money which often stacks and no sports money. An academically talented musician at St. Olaf can be over $32k per year in merit aid alone and a middle of the road ball player gets nothing up front. As was brought up in the Sweet Brian thread, with a small school you have to be selling something that people are willing to pay for. Tuition discounts of one kind and another are great but most institutions don’t have the high endowment and low enrollment numbers to just give it away to everyone.
Your friend’s D must have received the Eminence (full ride, only 25 offered per year) or one of their diversity scholarships (morrill). These are few and far between - nothing like Bama. Sorry, didn’t mean to hijack your thread. I just wish OSU did put more money into academic scholarships.
Not hijacking at all. There was just lots of discussion about football and other scholarships on the acceptance thread so I was trying to shift any and all to a different place.
There were several comments that football players are, by nature stupid and poor students and that scholar athletes don’t need or want the education. Yes, there are some players who don’t want the education but most college athletes are not on athletic scholarships and most athletes who are on scholarships are not going to play professional sports.
Trying to figure out what the point of this thread is, is it to defend athletic scholarships, or is it supposed to talk about the relative types of aid and so forth? With big time football and basketball (I am talking the big teams, in football the roughly 100 or so schools like Alabama, OSU, etc , in basketball the Dukes, Kentuckies, etc…) they are self contained programs with their money, they make a lot of money out of tv revenue and merchandising, and it funds their program. Last study I read said it doesn’t even fund general athletic scholarships, the pools for ‘lesser’ sports like lacrosse and swimming and track and so forth are from general atheltic scholarship pools. Most NCAA sports scholarships in fact are partials, and at the ‘lesser’ division 1 schools the football and basketball scholarships often are not full ride. One of the things boosters of the big sports programs love to claim is that having the big football or basketball programs generates donations to the general aid pools and such, but every study done on major division 1 sports says that basically the interest they generate goes right back into the specific sports programs, that having a great football team doesn’t morf into donations for a new library, academic scholarships and so forth.
Music scholarships for merit likewise have their own pools at schools, from talking to people who work in that area, there tends to be specialized pools (it varies from school to school), so with music merit scholarships at a university it is likely the scholarships are separate from the academic ones.
Basically, if a school has a big sports program, it doesn’t take away from anything else, but it also doesn’t add anything other than having a good football or basketball team being a draw for a sports fan.
Music merit scholarships tend to vary a lot, depending on where you go to school. At a lot of the top music programs, from what I can tell, because they get so many high level students, merit aid is often tied to need as well, especially in the conservatories (I am leaving Curtis out of this, and Colburn, because they are an all or none thing ie you get full tuition (curtis) or full ride (colburn) by getting in there. While merit aid is based on playing ability, the better someone is in theory the more the merit aid is, they also factor in family income as well, so a super talented kid from a well off family may not get much aid, whereas if the same kid’s family had more modest income they might get a full ride. At other programs, they may offer a kid from a fairly well off background a great merit scholarship, to try and woo them and build up the level of their student body, the kid who gets an okay merit at a Juilliard because of family income might get a full ride at a second tier school that really wants some standout students. I suspect sports programs outside the biggies might do the same thing, though I can’t speak with authority on that obviously, given the limited pools other sports have I suspect they look at family income when calculating athletic scholarships, depending on how much they want the student obviously.
Without reading your post yet, the point was to move that discussion off the decision thread as it was building up a head of steam over there.
One aspect of this conversation is that folks here (and on other post) were comparing football players and musicians, and how they’re valued by the school and society. One difference being there’s no such thing as a Football major (yet!). With the audition process being what it is, it has struck me that some conservatories view a potential musician in much the same way as a coach views a potential place kicker.
True - some years there is a glut or someone just ahead of you or you have to walk on and try to prove yourself (which most place kickers do).
Still . . . most of the very best football players who anyone knows at their high school or even in their town isn’t getting a D1 scholarship. Yes, it’s different if you attend a football factory, but it is also different if you attend a performing arts magnet.
True. At the risk of sounding like a crank, I’m pleased that all of my kids will have attended colleges where the football program is nonexistent, or very low-key. I look at UMass, our state university, and all the recent investment in their program and it’s been a money pit. The economics don’t make sense at all, in this case.
I don’t see the connection. What about USC,UCLA, and IU for example? They seem to manage to excel in both. As a grad student my D was offered substantial support from two of those schools while her Division I track star cousin got zip even though she was recruited by all three.
And don’t get me started on the economics of music making any sense.
And did I mention…Go Bruins Beat SC!!! (personally I regularly attend football (UCLA-the Rosebowl) AND music events at both schools.) =D>
You’re right, I’m probably mixing in my own (very!) long-ago college experience and one too many years in marching band.
yah…marching band will do that to ya :))