So Kendall Rogers posted this and the college baseball world immediately wondered if the news, which will pass on Wednesday, by the way, will be good news for Ole Miss, MSU, and other schools currently not in the high-rent district for baseball scholarship help.
The answer is no. This does little or nothing for those schools, but it will be an incredible help for Vanderbilt, Rice, Stanford, Michigan, etc.
Let me explain.
So the way things work schools can create financial aid categories that give aid to its students if they fit under a certain threshold. And it's usually a tiered system where a certain household income gets a certain amount of hardship aid. However, it has to be university-wide, not just with athletes and available for the most part to anyone -- though private schools can somewhat tinker with a case-by-case basis deal. So, currently, if a player falls into that category, he can get all the financial hardship aid possible and be a walk-on and not count as a scholarship player or against the 11.7, but if he got any athletic scholarship of the 11.7, all of his aid would count. So it's one or the other.
Most schools, including Ole Miss, don't have a system in place for this because it would cost them a ton of money compared to current structures when you consider overall student tuition dollars.
Here's a quick story to explain.
Austin Martin, the No. 5 pick in this past Draft, was originally committed to Jacksonville, but Vanderbilt recruiting coordinator at the time DJ Svihlik took a liking to Martin and he eventually signed with the Commodores instead. His household income fell below the threshold for aid so Vanderbilt gave Martin a ton of hardship aid and he was walk-on for the Commodores. No. 5 overall pick didn't count a dime against the 11.7.
So currently Vanderbilt recruits two ways: players who qualify for hardship income aid and walk on and players who don't but the 'Dores have the flexibility because of all the walk-ons to give huge scholarships and afford the players who don't qualify for the hardship aid offered by the school. With this new rule, they can combine them. Say a player only qualifies for 25 percent of a hardship aid scholarship or whatever, well they can just give him a 50 percent baseball scholarship and tack on the 25 percent hardship and suddenly he's on 75 percent scholarship. They don't have to recruit from the separate sides. They can combine them.
Ole Miss and a lot of schools simply can't or won't do this system university-wide, so a lot of the help comes from out-of-state tuition waivers and the like that are offered to all students. Well, this has zero impact on that.
Simply put: the rich get richer.
The answer is no. This does little or nothing for those schools, but it will be an incredible help for Vanderbilt, Rice, Stanford, Michigan, etc.
Let me explain.
So the way things work schools can create financial aid categories that give aid to its students if they fit under a certain threshold. And it's usually a tiered system where a certain household income gets a certain amount of hardship aid. However, it has to be university-wide, not just with athletes and available for the most part to anyone -- though private schools can somewhat tinker with a case-by-case basis deal. So, currently, if a player falls into that category, he can get all the financial hardship aid possible and be a walk-on and not count as a scholarship player or against the 11.7, but if he got any athletic scholarship of the 11.7, all of his aid would count. So it's one or the other.
Most schools, including Ole Miss, don't have a system in place for this because it would cost them a ton of money compared to current structures when you consider overall student tuition dollars.
Here's a quick story to explain.
Austin Martin, the No. 5 pick in this past Draft, was originally committed to Jacksonville, but Vanderbilt recruiting coordinator at the time DJ Svihlik took a liking to Martin and he eventually signed with the Commodores instead. His household income fell below the threshold for aid so Vanderbilt gave Martin a ton of hardship aid and he was walk-on for the Commodores. No. 5 overall pick didn't count a dime against the 11.7.
So currently Vanderbilt recruits two ways: players who qualify for hardship income aid and walk on and players who don't but the 'Dores have the flexibility because of all the walk-ons to give huge scholarships and afford the players who don't qualify for the hardship aid offered by the school. With this new rule, they can combine them. Say a player only qualifies for 25 percent of a hardship aid scholarship or whatever, well they can just give him a 50 percent baseball scholarship and tack on the 25 percent hardship and suddenly he's on 75 percent scholarship. They don't have to recruit from the separate sides. They can combine them.
Ole Miss and a lot of schools simply can't or won't do this system university-wide, so a lot of the help comes from out-of-state tuition waivers and the like that are offered to all students. Well, this has zero impact on that.
Simply put: the rich get richer.
