DI privates----Why?

[Huh?]

I write from the perspective of a DII school, frustrated by the "4 more years" size of DII and frustrated by the decisions that DI privates made to stay in DI.

 

I just do not understand why, when a very good alternative was offered to the private schools currently in DI, that almost all decided to stay in DI and continue to live with the ill will and mistrust that exists toward them.

 

That is why I ask how a DI private can, in good conscience and when a viable alternative exists, still say "NO" to a family in need of financial aid who happens to have an athletic child, just so the school can maintain a competitive advantage in DI by playing A or AA public schools? I think this position lacks integrity.

 

Or, do these DI private schools find a way to get the athletic student needing financial aid into school in some other way? Obviously, I think this position lacks integrity.

[Baldcoach]

I write from the perspective of a DII school, frustrated by the  "4 more years" size of DII and frustrated by the decisions that DI privates made to stay in DI.

 

I just do not understand why, when a very good alternative was offered to the private schools currently in DI, that almost all decided to stay in DI and continue to live with the ill will and mistrust that exists toward them.

 

That is why I ask how a DI private can, in good conscience and when a viable alternative exists, still say  "NO"  to a family in need of financial aid who happens to have an athletic child, just so the school can maintain  a competitive advantage in  DI by playing A or AA public schools?  I think this position lacks integrity.

 

Or, do these  DI private schools find a way to get the athletic student needing financial aid into school in some other way?  Obviously, I  think this position lacks integrity.

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I'll speak to the integrity issue first. The privates that stayed in DI did so because they don't, as a rule, offer any financial aid. Unlike most of the DII privates who have large endowments and charge large tuitions, most of the DI privates are small Christian schools with little or no endowment operating on a deficit budget...thus there is not an integrity issue. It is not about a supposed 'advantage' or keeping any such thing. Again you are ill informed. When the divisions were made in the late 90's very few of the schools that stayed DI were consistently good in athletics...most of the previous power houses went DII.

 

Now to the 'good alternative' argument. To put it simply, it isn't. It would be a huge financial burden for schools that run a deficit budget already to have to increase their athletic expenditures considerably for travel costs, bus charters, and overnight accomodations when they already have plenty of schools nearby to play. Further, most of the small DI schools have always played the public schools in their areas and didn't want to lose the rivalries. Also, most of the DI privates are not powerhouses in all sports...like many small schools they may have a few good years in one or the other...at the time of the split the powerhouses in Football in 1a were all public schools. Finally, many in the non-financial aid privates certainly didn't think it was any more fair for them to be expected to compete with financial aid giving schools than it was to expect public schools to compete with them. Sometimes we forget that DII was not started as a private school division but as a financial aid division...as the public schools had decided that that was a huge advantage that they could not overcome. Seemed to most of the small privates that the argument applied to them too.

 

Hope this clears things up for you...by the way, the only people that I know in this whole debate that have consistently shown integrity are the DI privates and some of the smaller DII privates (BGA comes to mind). It was the larger DII privates and recruiting that started this whole mess (not all of them...but some of them for sure). The publics have slandered the small privates, accused them of giving aid to recruit, and finally forced the highest multiplier in the country on them while the small privates have simply done what they can to improve their programs and excel. I'm not sure how you can have more integrity than that.

[Bighurt]

I agree with Balcoach which I will admit is usually the case.

 

I don't think that DII offers a very good alternative for every school. It depends on a lot of factors including funding considerations, natural rivalry considerations, etc.

 

Why is saying "NO" to an athlete in need of financial aid any different from saying "NO" to anyone else?

 

I have been a member of Christ Presbyterian Church since it started and I wish every church member's child who wants to go to CPA could go there but that is not the case.

 

Lack of integrity? It would be a lack of integrity for a good athlete whose parents cannot pay the tuition to be at a private school. I am not naive enough to say that this has never happened at any DI private school but I am saying that it has never happened at CPA and has not happened at the vast majority of DI private schools.

[rollredroll]

...by the way, the only people that I know in this whole debate that have consistently shown integrity are the DI privates and some of the smaller DII privates (BGA comes to mind).

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Could you expand on that comment; specifically, what has BGA done to show integrity that the larger DII privates have not?

[ksgovols]

Let's just say you know them when you see them at a public school sporting event. They're holding clipboards and wearing their DII jackets. I heard one public coach was having his kids swap jerseys and putting different names on the roster to throw off the DII recruiters.

[rollredroll]

They're holding clipboards and wearing their DII jackets. 

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Can't say I've ever seen a "DII jacket".

 

I heard one public coach was having his kids swap jerseys and putting different names on the roster to throw off the DII recruiters.

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Absolutely brilliant - spending time on roster-stuffing and sleight of hand with jerseys instead of coming up with that one great play or scheme that could make a difference in a game. I will be looking for that coach to challenge Flatt's and Tucker's win totals real soon.

[Huh?]

Why is saying "NO" to an athlete in need of financial aid any different from saying "NO" to anyone else?

 

Here is my point:

 

Any DI private school can give any amount of financial aid that they can afford to any student, except a varsity athlete , and still be in DI. DI privates are not prohibited from giving financial aid. What they are prohibited from doing is giving aid to varsity athletes.

 

The lack of integrity for me comes when a school gives aid to any student in need, but tells these students that they can not play varsity athletics.

[Bighurt]

Why is saying "NO" to an athlete in need of financial aid any different from saying "NO" to anyone else? 

 

Here is my point:

 

Any DI private school can give any amount of financial aid that they can afford to any student, except a varsity athlete , and still be in DI.  DI privates are not prohibited from giving financial aid.  What they are prohibited from doing is giving aid to varsity athletes.

 

The lack of integrity for me comes when a school gives aid to any student in need, but tells these students that they can not play varsity athletics.

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I am am telling you that CPA like most DI private schools does not give financial aid to any students.

[lazarus]

greetings baldcoach,

 

even tho i finished last week, havent been able to get on my assignment yet. (a little matter of a month's unread newspapers among other undone things). things get really tight down the stretch. but i will get to it soon.

the integrity question is an interesting one. seems that everyone thinks the schools with integrity are the ones most like themselves. the others, of course, have none.

it seems that cpa gives no financial aid to anyone. how many d-1 schools are there that give financial aid to non-athletes?

[rollredroll]

how many d-1 schools are there that give financial aid to non-athletes?

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It's hard to say, as many of the church-based schools do not have to file Form 990s. And those D-I schools that do file can conceivably "hide" financial aid under a category named "Other".

 

At a quick and dirty glance, I know at least USJ and FRA from DI offer some sort of financial aid, based on their filings. Both offer nominal dollars as a percentage of tuition receipts, although USJ's offering is considerably more than FRA's (which is surprising, as FRA's tuition is, to the best of my knowledge, considerably higher than USJ's).

Edited March 18, 2005 by rollredroll

[Baldcoach]

2 things...

 

for Rollred,

 

Wasn't implying that BGA was the only dII school that was ethical...personally I feel that almost all schools regardless of athletic or public/private statues are probably ethical. The reason BGA sprang to mind is that I happen to know that their board decided that if one student had to miss a chance at athletics b/c they were on financial aid then the school would go DII...very ethical. The reason some of the larger/more athletically powerful schools in DII didn't spring to mind is that I know of at least 2 schools out of the Super 7 who got this whole mess started. Not that there aren't great people at both...but both were very unethical in certain instances.

 

On the financial aid thingy...I doubt that any private school can say with absolute certainty that it would never offer any student financial aid. Since the mission of a Christian school is primarily spiritual and secondarily educational ruling out a poor student ever recieving aid to attend is probably not possible. On the other hand, none of the schools that stayed DI routinely give aid...if they do they should have gone DII. Most of the DII schools have a large percentage of their student body on some sort of aid...thus they had to go DII. That is not the case with the small religious privates...it is the money thing...there just isn't enough of it.

 

For you guys who are skeptical let me give some round numbers (these are in no way the real numbers as I don't know the real ones, but they are pretty accurate). Boyd has @ 1000 kids pre-k through 12. On average they pay something like $5k in tuition each year, for a tuition income of @5million a year (this is actually a bit high). Payroll alone at Boyd is in the high 4million range. Then there is plant maintenance, utilities, insurance, etc to pay for and that doesn't include the payments on buildings and any new construction that has to occur or money for professional growth, classroom upgrades, etc. Like many small schools they rely on donations and fundraisers to make up the budget shortfall every year. There simply is no money available for financial aid.

[rollredroll]

The reason BGA sprang to mind is that I happen to know that their board decided that if one student had to miss a chance at athletics b/c they were on financial aid then the school would go DII...very ethical. 

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OK, although I would contend that any school that is in DII currently effectively made the same decision.

 

I'm not sure why BGA needs to be singled out in this case. Based on FY 2003 tax returns, tuition assistance as a percent of tuition revenue was 7.6% at BGA. At MBA, it was 6.7% (and it was 6.3% at MBA in 2004; BGA's 2004 numbers are not available yet). MUS's number looks to be second lowest of the big privates (Super 7) at around 9.3%.

 

BGA is a fine school, but let's be realistic - their Board didn't make a Division decision based on one student-athlete.

Edited March 18, 2005 by rollredroll