CIS athletic financial award data

[journeyman]

CIS releases a report each year on athletic scholarships.

english.cis-sic.ca/sports/cis_news/2009-10/releases/20100201-281

You'll find a link to the stats at the bottom. Interesting that 24% of female cross country runners (compared to 15% of males) and 26% of female track athletes (compared to 17% of males) got some kind of AFA. Average awards were around $1700 (track) and $1400 (xc). With an average tuition of just under $5000, these are not full rides, but it is something.

[Angus Macaulay]

I wonder if there is a title nine -esque attitude in the way some of the scholarships are being awarded.

Regardless of the distribution of the awards, i think it's a really positive move to fund our athletes in the CIS. One, it will keep a few more high performers in the CIS adding to the already high and steadily improving caliber and depth of competition. Two, i think most schools have some sort of financial/academic requirements which would promote accessibility and academic excellence.

[MattMc]

Since many of these awards are linked to academic achievement, it may be a reflection of:

a) higher university enrolment among females (in the 55-60% range at many schools)
b) higher academic standing among females

[madm]

c) women are the victims of our sexist society

[pmac]

Feb 1, 2010 14:38:28 GMT -5 madm said:

c) women are the victims of our sexist society

This is evidently the conclusion I also drew when a higher percentage of women received financial assistance in both track and field and cross country. The women are clearly being deprived.

[Angus Macaulay]

Thanks Matt. I didn't make that connection. That would cover the spread for the numbers presented too (roughly, but not quite 2-1).

[ahutch]

The link John provided offers some fairly interesting data. Apparently more women used XC eligibility than men, which really surprises me. (More men used track eligibility than women.) No details are offered on the way AFA is allocated (e.g. the balance of academic and athletic requirements, whether each sport gets a specific quota at individual schools, etc.), so it's hard to draw firm conclusions. That being said, it seems highly likely that, as Angus suggests, there's some tacit Title IX-type choices being made in order to counteract the huge gender imbalance in scholarships caused by football (and to a lesser extent hockey).

[journeyman]

Hutch, I don't think there is a title-IX thing going on really. I think there are other factors. There are strong academic requirements for CIS AFAs: 80% I believe. I guess that is strong. I think it may be more due to the higher percentage of women in university and perhaps stronger academic performance by women, as someone else suggested above. I really wish they would give a school-by-school breakdown of each sport, but I suppose it is not in everyone's interest to do so. Concordia has 1 AFA for cross country (new this year) and it has no gender requirement. I will probably alternate it from year to year, but it depends.

[ahutch]

Just to clarify, I don't think it would be a BAD thing if universities were making an effort to balance AFA between genders. (Title IX gets a bad name when universities are lazy in their compliance attempts and simply cut or limit unfunded rosters spots for second-tier men's teams. But there's nothing wrong with balancing opportunities in a positive way.)

I don't really know how much aid is team-specific, as opposed to available to any athlete who meets the academic requirements. Unlike your Concordia program, the vast majority of sports are administered separately for the two genders. The men's basketball coach isn't saying to the women's coach, "Here, take my scholarships this year because your recruits are smarter than mine." So it seems likely that allocation of aid is divided top-down (i.e. by administrators) rather than bottom-up (i.e. based on which athletes show up).

Football players are getting $1.7 million a year in AFA, and men's hockey players are getting $1.5 million (compared to $0 and $0.7 million for women). I suspect this is one of the big reasons a women's XC runner is almost twice as likely to get AFA as a men's XC runner. Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with that! I'd do the same (though I'd start by evening out the money in men's and women's hockey).

[Chris Moulton]

I have heard of many examples of a men's basketball (or volleyball or hockey) team getting a private donor to sponsor a scholarship and the athletic department having to fund a similar scholarship for the women's team to maintain equity.

[SI]

That is probably because the donation would likely be to the institution with an understanding that it would go to the scholarship. University would have no choice but to match it if that is their policy with respect to scholarships. Their only other option would be to turn down the donation.

[ronb]

I am not in touch with current CIS regulations or limitations, relative to athlete support. If we wanted every distance runner in Canada to be able to afford tuition (minimum) at a CIS School, would the system permit it? And would the limiting factor be regulations, or financial resources? And, how do we move towards that goal?

[Angus Macaulay]

In my last year of eligibility, the men's volleyball team at guelph received a solid amount of support as well as a donation to the department. There was a "challenge" set forth to other alumni to support athletics in similar ways. The goal was to create a culture of giving and support for all the teams. Hopefully that sort of thing continues moving forward at Guelph as well as at other schools. I'm pretty sure there are limits in the NCAA as to the number of scholarships available each year but I can't see that being a problem in Canada for a little while at least until that financial support has reached significant levels across the all the schools.

I know the guelph football program has a good amount of alumni money coming in each year that helps them operate and offer support. The adopt-a-gryphon program allows for team directed donations to be made too.

From what i can tell, the system in place is team based leaving each team to fend for themselves so to speak. Perhaps if sponsors get on board in a big way the department will regulate the funding dispersion.

I can't speak for other schools in any regard. Perhaps things are evolving differently elsewhere. I'm curious about Queens with their new facilities recently opened and interested to know if that some of the new athletics facilities came from a funding initiative driven by their school, or by a group of queen's "friends" with deep pockets.