Sports Scholarships & College Athletic Programs

The competition for college athletic scholarships is intense, with a large number of high school athletes in pursuit of a limited amount of money. The most commonly recognized scholarships come at the NCAA level and with the major sports---football and basketball---but there are a number of other options for good athletes to get a good college education with some financial help from the college they choose to attend. The major sports generally offer full-ride scholarships that cover tuition, books and housing. Many sports split up their scholarship money to give some money to more students and cover only portions of those expenses with partial scholarships.

  1. NCAA Scholarships

    • The National Collegiate Athletic Association is broken into a number of different divisions---Division I, II and III based on the size of the school and its investment in its athletic program. All three divisions put teams on the field to be competitive but all are not equal in terms of financial matters. Division I and II programs can offer scholarships to athletes, while Division III colleges cannot. Each sport in D-I and D-II has a limit on the number of scholarships it can award. The competition for these is fierce, and the available moneys go only to the most elite athletes in their chosen sport. The coaches at the D-I and D-II programs have as one of their most critical duties the recruiting of the best athletes they can find, and they work hard to identify those players. D-III programs do not offer athletic scholarships, but they do work with promising athletes to assist with the costs of a college education as a means of getting better players to come to their school. Schools see sports as a recruiting tool for the entire student population. Coaches work around the lack of athletic scholarships by focusing on strong players who also excel in the classroom and work to get them academic scholarships.

    NAIA Scholarships

    • The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics is a much smaller subdivision of colleges that participate in sports. The NAIA focuses more on the student side of the student-athlete, and there are fewer schools involved in NAIA sports---about 300 as opposed to around 1,000 NCAA colleges. The NAIA also has Divisions I, II and III, and scholarships are only available in the top two divisions. Schools have fewer sports and fewer scholarships, but for athletes who cannot get noticed by NCAA coaches, the NAIA offers some options for continuing sports and getting help with educational costs while doing so.

    NJCAA

    • For athletes who are not ready either academically or athletically for the four-year college, junior colleges offer another option. The National Junior College Athletic Association is the organization that oversees sports at two-year colleges. There are some divisional breakdowns in the big sports, like football and basketball, but most sports are not subdivided. The NJCAA refers to its scholarship program as grants-in-aid, and while students do not get the kinds of dollars that go to NCAA athletes, they do get significant financial help with the lesser costs of attending a junior college. Grants are only available in men's baseball, basketball, cross-country, golf, track and field, soccer and tennis, along with women's basketball, cross-country, softball, track and field, soccer, tennis and volleyball. The two-year college option is possibility for athletes looking to get on the NCAA radar with hopes of transferring to a four-year school later.