Scholarships for instance.

VT has 30k total students, and less than 250 student athletes.

Why is it so important that an actual check be cut for tuition from the AD to the school?

Why not just write off the cost and apply that money elsewhere?

Certainly some scholar related costs obviously cant be, like the COA money. But if they are getting books from the book store, living on campus, and having a meal plan, why does that actually have to be paid for by the AD.

It is a tiny minority of students, VT is not going to be broken because of that incurred cost and it would free up significant resources for other projects and improvements.