LSU, TCU, and Vandy have an advantage over Texas A&M with the scholarships they offer. Is Florida in the same boat as us? What about Virginia?

What is their advantage?

LSU offers full rides to in state students. They can offer more scholarship money to out of state students.
TCU and Vandy are able to offer full scholarships, from what I heard. It may be a different way they accomplish this, but the end result is the same.

Texags should fund an academic scholarship for baseball players that carry a 2.0 GPA.

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LSU offers full rides to in state students. They can offer more scholarship money to out of state students.
TCU and Vandy are able to offer full scholarships, from what I heard. It may be a different way they accomplish this, but the end result is the same.

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They're private and have more flexibility in how they dole out money. Everyone has the same amount of athletic aid, it's the academic aid that differs

And Louisiana has their TOPS program for in-state folks. Which does free up $$ for big time out of state guys. The state of Louisiana produces good baseball talent, so being able to cherry pick out of state guys is a substantial advantage

Can somebody give me a link about private schools having more flexibility for academic scholarships?

I don't believe that to be true. Yes, they can give grants and scholarships to baseball players, but I believe they have to apply the same standards they would to any student.

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Can somebody give me a link about private schools having more flexibility for academic scholarships?

I don't believe that to be true. Yes, they can give grants and scholarships to baseball players, but I believe they have to apply the same standards they would to any student.

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Not exactly. They are private and don't have to report a lot of stuff. Plus, it isn't an NCAA violation to offer full scholarships to as many sports as they wish, as long as Title IX isn't an issue.

Stanford has about 800 athletes in about 30 sports on a 110 million budget and dominate the Director's Cup standings. Think about that for a moment. It ain't the athletic scholarships.

Overall GPA ACT Score SAT Score Rank in Class
Deans Scholarship 3.86 31.7 2080 Top 5.2%
Faculty Scholarship 3.68 30.0 1967 11.6%
TCU Scholarship 3.64 28.8 1924 10.6%
Founders Scholarship 3.58 28.1 1846 12.5%
All Scholarships 3.74 30.3 1986 8.4%

From TCU's website.

Those numbers don't even get you considered for the large scholarships at A&M

Vandy also does need based scholarships, with flexible requirements.

TCU only has academic scholarships in addition to the athletic. For instance, Preston Morrison only has academic scholarships.

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Can somebody give me a link about private schools having more flexibility for academic scholarships?

I don't believe that to be true. Yes, they can give grants and scholarships to baseball players, but I believe they have to apply the same standards they would to any student.

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A quick Google search shows that over 60% of Vanderbilt students are on need based financial aid while that number is closer to 40% at A&M. Private school give financial aid to a very high percent of their students compared to their private counterparts. It's not an accident that we've seen a lot more private schools win since the rules changed to allow academic aid to first year athletes in equivalency sports. What they can do is declare a player a hardship case then treat him like every other student. The average baseball award is 42%. Tack on a 50% award for academics like well over half of the rest the student body gets and you've got 92%of the cost at Vanderbilt paid for. That's one hell of a great deal.

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Precisely. If they have the money to do it, private schools can offer monetary incentives on the academic side that are beyond "improper benefit" rules. And I don't have that much objection to it, if they maintain their academic standards for admissions for everyone.

This so called advantage is way over blown

Care to tell us how so?

Wasn't aware of these loopholes. Definately not a level playing field.

having heard Lance Berkman talk about his days at Rice --- every school has cupcake classes to keep their jocks eligible

I didn't say no advantage I said it was overblown. If this was that big of deal don't you think more schools would be screeming bloody murder about it?

But I'm sure you can name the guys we lost because those schools gave them a couple extra percent on their scholarship.

It's not a "big deal" because college baseball isn't on the stage college football is and because its all partial scholarships vs full. When you can conserve athletic dollars and replace them with academic ones, guess what happens? You have more Scholarship dollars for higher rated recruits... OR, and maybe more importantly, you can build more quality depth, particularly pitching.

I think that it is made up for in the actual tuition cost. For every dollar that we save on the dudes with academic schollys, we spend making up the difference between public /private school.

Vandy on the other hand has a much looser scholarship pool overall and we all know how Louisiana schools work.

More on this when I have a keyboard not just a phone

But in the grand scheme of things it's not the difference in TCU beating A&M in the supers. Hell I think Childress said it wasn't that big of deal at a dugout club meeting, specifically I thing about the LSU thing

Is that what was stated? No. And I'm not making the argument that tcu beat us because their recruiting advantages. They have an advantage, they use it, they have a good team as a result. Are they world beaters? No. Is it an unfair advantage? debatable

tcu was a bottom feeder in a lot of things until recently. That's all I'm saying about it. Draw your own conclusions.

TCU has a great coach. They've stuck with him and they upgraded facilities and my guess invested in the program. Same with football. I don't think they're good because of some so called scholarship advantage. If so then why isn't the CWS nothing but private schools?

I guess if this was a big deal, you'd have more schools screaming about it.

i see college baseball as a rich kids sport. It cost money to play year round, go to camps,etc. most of our players drive pretty nice trucks. So my feel,is that the parent can absorb the cost of school that the scholarship doesn't cover.

Which speaking of that, who pays the cost for players to play summer ball? Playing cape cod and some of these other places can't be cheap?

You keep throwing out the "if this was a big deal"... thats not the point.

Baseball has 11.7 scholarships to give. The competition in recruiting for the elite prospects is ridiculous, so an additional 20% here or there can make a difference, a big difference. Also, baseball players realize they cannot win alone. They need elite pitchers on their team to win. So, when they can defer athletic dollars and be "made whole" with academic dollars it suits their interests and frees up money to go compete for those kind of athletes with more $$ in terms of a scholarship offer.

I don't understand why this is hard to grasp. It's not an excuse for anything, and it's not a reason why we lost to tcu. However, it explains why the competition for elite arms in particular is very heated and why schools like tcu and vandy can stockpile talent. Without it, the cost of attendance, even with an athletic scholarship of 50% is more than most state schools with no scholarship money.

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Wasn't aware of these loopholes. Definately not a level playing field.

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Its not really a loophole, and how would you re-write the rule?

I'd be very interested to see what these kids at Vanderbilt and TCU are still having to pay on average- in-state kids down here at A&M are starting with a cost of attendance less than half of Vanderbilt of TCU.


Anyways, I don't think this is what is keeping A&M down. This is a red herring.

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LSU, TCU, and Vandy have an advantage over Texas A&M with the scholarships they offer. Is Florida in the same boat as us? What about Virginia?

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The Longhorns are in the same boat and...well...it would pain me to finish that sentence, some of their recent seasons notwithstanding...

It's definitely not what's keeping A&M from breaking through. But, it does have an impact on recruiting upper tier talent. Not to the point that we lose out on a bunch of prospects, but moreso that the competition for those prospects is greater... Which has a trickle down effect on how you are able to round out your roster.

Many things are advantages, this IMO is very minor and we can make it up with facilities, academics, etc.

If it was that big of a deal why aren't coaches all over America screeming about it?

We have parents and former players on here, I wish they would chime in and saying its a real,factor or not.

Again I get your point, im saying I think by now we would have heard it mentioned by the coaches, players, somebody if was that big of a deciding factor.

I view this like the Nike vs Adiddas debate. Basically a minor factor that really doesn't sway. Kid one way or another.

Maybe. I think people push back because we want to see the numbers to see just what kind of difference it is making.

TCU has to offer a ~27% academic scholarship to get on level terms with an out-of-state student at Texas A&M, and a ~60% academic scholarship to get on level terms with an in-state student at Texas A&M.

Vanderbilt is even more expensive.

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Deans Scholarship 3.86 31.7 2080 Top 5.2%
Faculty Scholarship 3.68 30.0 1967 11.6%
TCU Scholarship 3.64 28.8 1924 10.6%
Founders Scholarship 3.58 28.1 1846 12.5%
All Scholarships 3.74 30.3 1986 8.4%

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The Dean's Scholarship is the most lucrative of these, and it is $18,000 a year. That lowers TCU's cost of attendance to about $41,000.

The out-of-state cost of attendance at Texas A&M is about $ 43,000 and the in-state cost-of-attendance is about $23,000.

None of the other scholarships on that list are greater than $12,000, and would leave at least $47,000 left.

See Page 5

They have other scholarships and grants that could help, but those scholarships above aren't going to hurt us on the recruiting trail.

Agree to disagreE