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The Realities of the College Soccer Scholarship

Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Posted by: Greg Vallee
Happy Summer to all of our SCYS Members. With the successful completion of the USYS Region 3 Tournament hosted at CESA and with the USYS National Championships beginning in a few days at Discoveries SC in Rock Hill our state is being overrun by college coaches recruiting players for their various programs. A perfect time if any to discuss the realities of the college soccer scholarship.

We all have visions of our children receiving full scholarships to play soccer or any sport in college and with the cost of higher education these days it's a great vision. But before we frame that picture of your little kicker signing the Athletic Grant in Aide on National Signing Day let's look at some facts.

College Soccer Teams and Affiliation

Aaffiliation                Men              Women
NCAA Division 1         198                 310
NCAA Division 2         179                 225
NCAA Division 3         400                 425
NAIA                         217                 223

There are approximately 61, 000 players playing college soccer. This does not include athletes participating in soccer programs at  Junior Colleges or National Christian College Athletic Association programs. Each year coaches need to replace graduating seniors and players that do not return for a host of reasons. On average college coaches will need to replace between 5 and 6 players per year on their rosters. This equals out to approximately 15, 000 players that are being identified and recruited to play college soccer per year. How does this affect your child and what about scholarships?

Most schools offer some sort of athletic scholarship to help entice the student-athlete to their institution. Let's look at the breakdown of total number of scholarships that is permitted per division and affiliation.

Affiliation               Men                 Women
NCAA Division 1       9.9                    14
NCAA Division 2        9                      9.9
NCAA Division 3        0                       0
NAIA                       12                     12

A few things to keep in mind here when looking at the above numbers. This number represents the total number of scholarships schools are allowed to have. Most schools are not maxed out at the above numbers. There are various reasons for this. Budgets, fund raising dollars, athletic conference rules, lack of funds and the list goes on and on. The above number varies greatly from school to school and not every school will offer the full allotment.

11 players play on a field during a game. As you can see even at the total number of scholarships an NCAA Division 1 men's program only has 9.9 possible scholarships to offer. Most men's and women's programs carry anywhere between 25 and 30 players. This means that coaches have to decided how to break up their scholarship dollars amongst their players. When looking into college soccer programs for your players be sure to find out how many scholarships the program has to offer and have a realistic understanding of your players value to the program. As a men's assistant for a NCAA Division 2 program in Florida for 5 years the average scholarship amount we gave out was $3000 per year. That's right scholarships are only granted one year at a time. So a $3000 scholarship to go to a school that costs $33,000 per year isn't a massive price break.

So what does all of this mean? Well it means that we need to be sure to explore all avenues of scholarships for our children. South Carolina offers a variety of scholarships for Academic Achievement such as the Hope, Life and Palmetto Scholarships. Most schools will combined or bundle athletic grant in aide with academic grant in aide and truth be known your student athlete will most likely receive more academic money than athletic money from colleges.

The NCAA calls them student-athletes for a reason. They truly are students first and athletes second and are awarded finaincal grant in aide as such. So before we think about spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on individual trainers, lessons, camps, teams and tournaments be sure that our sons and daughters understand that academic success although not as glamorous pays more than on field success.