As part of their recently-announced “110% Hokie” fundraising campaign, the Virginia Tech athletic department has released their Cost of Attendance figures for 2015.
For more than 40 years, the maximum allowable NCAA Division 1 athletics scholarship covered tuition, fees, room, board, and books but not the incidental, personal costs of attending college.
But in January of 2015, the NCAA passed legislation allowing institutions to pay a student-athlete’s full cost of attendance (COA), essentially covering the scholarship “gap.” Universities can start paying COA beginning August 1st, 2015.
Each school’s financial aid office determines COA, using broad federal guidelines originating from the Higher Education Act of 1965. The COA number serves as a maximum, and comprises only those expenses that are directly related to college attendance, such as tuition, fees, room, board, books, and now, miscellaneous personal expenses, transportation to/from home, etc.
When the NCAA approved COA payments to athletes in January, Virginia Tech immediately announced their Pylons of Promise initiative. At that point in time, Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock estimated that Virginia Tech would pay a COA stipend of about $2,500.
As part of the recently-announced “110% Hokie” campaign, Virginia Tech released their final COA numbers:
- $3,280 for in-state student-athletes
- $3,620 for out-of-state student-athletes
As previously estimated, COA payments will add about $950,000 annually to Virginia Tech’s scholarship bill, hence the 110% Hokie campaign to help cover those extra costs.
Here at TechSideline.com, we covered the updated COA figures in our article about the 110% Hokie campaign, but we decided to run this separate update about the released COA figures to bring special attention to the final numbers, and in order to correct any figures you may see elsewhere, such as this Chronicle of Higher Education article which incorrectly lists Virginia Tech’s COA payments as $2,770 per year.
Click below to see the page from Virginia Tech’s 110% Hokie campaign dedicated to COA, from which the figures in this article originated. Check King Soopers Ad and Piggly Wiggly Ad.
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That picture of the WM pylons is absolutely gorgeous.
110% Hokie maybe?
Yep, thanks. Fixed now
So all the money VT is making won’t cover the cost and therefore need to raise more?
Can walk-ons receive COA money?
I do not believe so, no.
no. it’s not really a “stipend,” it’s an increase in the value of a scholarship
Awesome question, but I’m pretty sure no. The “GAP” money would give universities “EXTRA” scholarships otherwise. It does, and I don’t know the law, seem to give universities with higher COA an advantage though.