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OGFC College Recruiting Newsletter

Parents and Players,   Soccer is an  Equivalency Sport .  In Division 1, per NCAA rules, each program is allowed to award 14 full scholarships on the women’s side and 9.9 on the men’s side.  In Division 2 the breakdown is 9.9 for women and 9 for men.  NAIA allows 12 for each while the NJCAA allows 24 for each.  Division 3 does not award athletic scholarships.  I’ve had parents/players assume this is what a coach can award each year to their incoming class.  This is incorrect.  Think of it this way, if a college roster consists of 30 student-athletes, this means the maximum scholarships allowed is allocated across the entire roster.  You may have some players on a full scholarship, some at 50%, others only on a book scholarship as well as recruited walk-on.  In an equivalency sport, you are allowed to allocate partial scholarship. This is unlike  Head Count Sports  such as basketball or volleyball.  In Head Count Sports student-athletes are either on a full scholarship or are non-scholarship walk-on’s.  You can’t give partial scholarships.

While the NCAA sets scholarship limitations, this does not mean that each university program has that amount in their scholarship budget.  It is very common for programs on the women’s side at the mid-major D1 level and below to have less than the maximum allowable scholarship limitation.  You will often see programs that have what is equivalent to only 10 or 11 scholarships.  They may be competing against programs that have the maximum of 14 scholarships.  This disparity occurs not only from conference to conference, but often times between schools within the same conference.  It is possible for a program from the Horizon League to have 14 scholarships competing against another Horizon League team who has only 10 scholarships.

An additional wrinkle to the scholarship landscape are tuition waivers, sometimes referred to as “reciprocity”.  This is primarily specific to state institutions.  As everyone knows, if you are an Ohio resident for example and attend an Ohio state institution, your cost for tuition is markedly cheaper than if a non-Ohio resident attends an Ohio state institution.  However, a good percentage of athletic departments at state institutions allow programs to recruit out of state students and waive the additional cost of out of state tuition.  This can be huge.  If there is a $8,000 disparity between in-state cost and out of state cost, a program that can waive that additional fee has a marked advantage over those programs that can’t.  Their scholarship budget is able to go much further. And once again, this happens very often between state institutions within the same conference.

Finally, Division 1 has recently passed legislation that allows programs to award “cost of attendance”.  To put it in general terms, a full scholarship player not only can receive tuition, room, board and books as part of their award, but may also receive a $1,500 check per semester.

You can access much information about this topic at  NCAA.ORG and follow the links.  Keep in mind the scholarship issue is complex and even within the same division often not a level playing field.  I’ve only touched upon the tip of the iceberg.  And the more knowledge you have about this subject, the better questions you can ask in order to secure your son or daughter the best package possible.

Recommended Reading A Long Way Gone:  Memoirs of a Boy Soldier  by Ishmael Beah

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” George Bernard Shaw

Pat Ferguson is our editor for this series of college recruiting newsletters. Pat is currently our girls director of player development and the women's soccer coach at Wright State University. Please click here to view prior issues of our Ohio Galaxies FC college recruiting newsletter.