One of the many scholarships available in the United States to students comes in the form of an athletic scholarship. This award is based mainly on the students ability to play in particular sports and is somewhat only existent in the United States.
There is a major regulatory board in place for athletic scholarships in America, known as the NCAA. (National Collegiate Athletic Association). One of the key precedents established by the NCAA was to ensure that college scholarships awarded for athletic ability alone would have to be re-enforced by excellent academic results.
The NCAA divides its membership into three divisions, and these educational establishments compete with one another on the sporting field with teams comprising mostly of athletic scholarship students. The NCAA also holds the power to abolish athletic scholarships to any particular educational establishment should they deem their behavior and misconduct to be unacceptable. Dubbed the “death penalty”, this abolishment of athletic scholarships can pre-empt disastrous consequences for the school in question.
Multiple arguments exist both for and against athletic scholarships in the United States. Often people feel that an athletic scholarship should be unnecessary for students with sporting abilities, and would be better served if granted to students with limited abilities in either sports or academia. The common argument is that the only purpose the athletic scholarship serves is to help retain multiple educational establishments sporting teams as opposed to helping students with education.
Supporters of athletic scholarships however suggest that academic scholarships are only available to students of middle or higher class family backgrounds, whereas athletic scholarships are the only scholarship type made readily available to those students from less privileged family backgrounds. Without the athletic sports scholarships, many feel that these students would miss out on the opportunity to participate in higher education completely.
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