U SPORTS Announces Significant Policy Changes To Athletic Scholarships and Eligibility Alignment
The following post from USports on September 28, 2023 https://usports.ca/en/news/2023/09/2231723207/u-sports-announces-significant-policy-changes-to-athletic-scholarships-and-eligibility-alignment may be USports way of keeping some of our better athletes that go down south to play their sports here at home and enhance the “student-athlete” experience. To better support student-athletes, U SPORTS announced significant policy changes to Athletic Scholarships (AFA) and Eligibility on Thursday, effective the 2024-25 season.
Beginning next year, first-time entering student-athletes will be permitted to participate and receive an athletic scholarship so long as they have been accepted to a member university and enrolled in degree-granting courses.
The new direction replaces the existing policy that requires entering student-athletes to have an 80% average in their final year of high school or CEGEP to be eligible for an entering athletic scholarship and a 60% average to participate athletically in their first year of study.
“These changes intend to remove systemic barriers impacting a student-athlete’s ability to participate in U SPORTS and receive funding assistance for pursuing their education,” said Pierre Arsenault, U SPORTS Chief Executive Officer. “Our focus is to make university studies and sports participation more accessible. For current entering student-athletes participation in U SPORTS depends on their high school or CEGEP grades. Therefore, we chose to align participation and scholarship qualification with admission to an institution.”
Also, beginning in the 2024-2025 academic year, U SPORTS institutions will be required to distribute a minimum of 45% of their total Athletic Scholarship units to student-athletes on men’s teams and a minimum of 45% of their total AFA units to student-athletes on women’s teams.
An AFA (athletic scholarship) unit equals 100% of tuition and mandatory fees for any student-athlete during an academic year. Therefore, a student with tuition and required fees of $ 5,000 and who receives an athletic scholarship of $ 5,000 would use one unit.
“Student-athletes commit many hours to represent their university,” added Arsenault. “Between attending classes, studying, practice and competitions, it is difficult for student-athletes to hold employment in-season. We are proud to work with our member institutions to ensure equitable opportunities for AFA support. We know that the changes adopted this week set all U SPORTS students up for greater success in the classroom and on the field of competition.” CORPORATE
Now the next thing that has to happen is an enhancement of corporate support here in Canada for schools to be able to manage their costs. This way we do not have any other schools “over spend” themselves into “oblivion”.
Source: https://usports.ca/en/news/2023/09/2231723207/u-sports-announces-significant-policy-changes-to-athletic-scholarships-and-eligibility-alignment