Conference USA becomes latest conference to offer cost-of-attendance scholarships
Conference USA is the latest Group of Five conference to agree to provide cost-of-attendance scholarships to its student athletes.
The conference’s 14 athletic directors decided on the move during its winter meetings a couple weeks ago, but only now are the individiual schools beginning to announce whether they plan to participate.
“What we did in Conference USA is we voted that each institution will give cost of attendance, but you don’t have to do it,” Marshall athletic director Mike Hamrick told the Herald-Dispatch. “You can do it to the max or you can do it for some sports, but not other sports. What we at Marshall have chosen to do to be competitive in all sports is to provide our student-athletes, starting with the 2015-16 year, with cost of attendance. We estimate it will cost us approximately $700,000.”
During the NCAA's annual convention in January, the NCAA’s Power Five conferences — ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC — voted to redefine the athletic scholarship so that it covered more than tuition, room, board, books and fees. Now, additional money has been added to scholarships to cover things such as transportation and personal expenses.
Hamrick told the Herald-Dispatch that each Conference USA school could decide how much it was willing to offer student-athletes.
“Each individual school’s financial aid office determines what the cost of attendance is, based upon a federal financial aid formula, so all the schools are different,” Hamrick said. “One school can give this amount and one can give another. It’s just based on where they live. We haven’t gotten the final range at Marshall per athlete, but it will be anywhere from $2,700 to $3,000 per year.”
All of the other conferences in the Group of Five — American Athletic, Mid-America, Mountain West and Sun Belt — all have said they will allow cost-of-attendance scholarships, but like Conference USA, will allow individual schools to determine how to dole them out and how much to pay.
Group of Five conferences were not mandated to add cost-of-attendance scholarships, but realized it had to do so in order to stay competitive with the bigger institutions.
“If another school is going to give a kid extra money and we’re not, there isn’t a chance that we’ll get him,” Hamrick told the Herald-Dispatch. “Recruits ask ‘Do you provide cost-of-attendance?’ Do you think if (coach) Doc Holliday says no, he’s going to get some of the players that he got in that recruiting class? For some of those kids coming from difficult backgrounds, that extra money per year is huge, so they can live while on campus.”
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