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Who Really Earns a Scholarship?

One major argument against paying athletes is that they already are paid through their scholarship. As a result, it's important to examine how the scholarships are distributed between the sports. Below is the breakdown of how many scholarships there are for each team in Division 1. There are interesting differences between men's and women's sports as a result of Title IX and the large number of male scholarships that are used on Football. A point of emphasis is that Football and Men's and Women's Basketball can only give out full scholarships, however, the rest of the sports can (and mostly do) give out partial scholarships. As a result, many athletes on those teams are offered a partial scholarship and only the very top athletes on each team are given a full scholarship. All of the scholarship limit data can be found here.

85 FBS Football*

65 FCS Football*

20 Rowing

18 Women's Cross-Country/Track and Field

18 Women's Ice Hockey

18 Men's Ice Hockey

15 Women's Basketball*

15 Equestrian

14 Women's Soccer

14 Women's Swimming and Diving

13 Men's Basketball*

12.6 Men's Cross-Country/Track and Field

12.6 Men's Lacrosse

12 Field Hockey

12 Men's Gymnastics

12 Women's Lacrosse

12 Rugby

12 Softball

12 Women's Volleyball

11.7 Baseball

9.9 Men's Swimming and Diving

9.9 Wrestling

8 Women's Tennis

8 Women's Waterpolo

7 Women's Skiing

6.5 Triathlon

6.3 Women's Gymnastics

6.3 Men's Skiing

6.3 Men's Soccer

6 Women's Golf

6 Beach Volleyball

5 Bowling

5 Women's Fencing

4.5 Men's Fencing

4.5 Men's Golf

4.5 Men's Tennis

4.5 Men's Volleyball

4.5 Men's Waterpolo

3.6 Rifle

* - indicates sport that can only allocate full scholarships