By Dustin Weeden

Earlier this year, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) voted to increase scholarship aid to college student-athletes to include miscellaneous expenses such as food and transportation.

Previously, athletic scholarships only covered education (e.g. books, tuition, and fees) and living expenses. This policy change tied the amount of athletic scholarships to what is known as the total cost of attendance.

Colleges and universities calculate the cost of attendance by estimating the expenses students expect to pay in a year including tuition, fees, books, housing, transportation and other expenses.

The cost of attendance number is important for financial aid and student borrowing purposes because it establishes the maximum amount of aid a student may receive. After grant aid and an expected family contribution are subtracted from the cost of attendance, the remaining amount is the maximum a student may borrow in a given year to attend a particular institution.

Establishing the cost of attendance for an institution is an inexact science because each student has different preferences for housing, modes of transportation and miscellaneous spending. However, there was an incentive for institutions to keep the total cost of attendance low to demonstrate affordability and indirectly limit student borrowing.

The new NCAA policy might create an incentive for institutions to increase their total cost of attendance. By raising the amount institutions estimate students spend on items such as food and transportation, athletic departments are able to award larger stipends to athletes.

These larger stipends can be used as a recruiting tool to help convince student-athletes to attend a particular institution over another with a lower cost of attendance and thus lower stipend. Several universities with major football and basketball programs have increased their cost of attendance this year.

This is a trend that bears watching. Research suggests many students don’t even know they have taken out loans let alone the amount they have borrowed. By increasing the cost of attendance to give athletes larger scholarships, institutions may end up allowing some students to borrow more without realizing it.

If a student automatically takes out the maximum loan amount each year, he or she will face an increased debt burden.

Dustin Weeden is a policy specialist in NCSL's education program.

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