Athletic Scholarships in College

Ajit Vakharia

According to Mike Knobler of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, athletes in college do not nearly have the academic credential their non athletic counterparts do. For example, the average SAT score difference between athletes and non athletes at the University of Florida is three hundred and forty-six points, the highest in the fifty-three schools polled. This raises the question about fairness. Is it fair that athletes with substandard credentials be accepted into colleges with higher requirements? The answer is no, and not because of their credentials but because of the scholarship money. According to a concerned citizen, their scholarship at a fairly expensive university is twenty-one thousand dollars while athletes with less than remarkable school statistics have a full ride scholarship. There are many students all around the country where their potential scholarship money is actually going to athletes, so the school has a better chance of recruiting. Though a school could potentially be making more money by having better recruitments and in turn having a better athletic program for different sports, the scholarship money that could go to more deserving students is being lost. In times of financial turmoil, student families need scholarships more than ever, and if schools are using their scholarship funds on athletics, a lot of students are missing out on getting the best education possible. One way for colleges to fix this problem is to only budget a certain amount of money to athletic scholarships, and only give out scholarships to those students who meet all the schools requirements and leave the rest of the money for students in need. If all colleges become stricter on requirements for their athletes, the playing field for all the teams would then be leveled leading to no unfair advantage between teams in the same division and conference.