NCAA Athletic Scholarships

The US National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) offers several Athletic Scholarships. These include scholarships at the undergraduate level, those at the graduate level, and degree completion scholarships. Their details are provided below.

Undergraduate Athletics Scholarships: The funds for athletic scholarships for outstanding undergraduate student-athletes in Division-II and Division-I schools come from the NCAA membership revenue. The amount awarded through these scholarships is approximately $1 billion each year. These scholarships, either partial or full, are made available to more than126,000 student athletes each year.

The administration of these scholarships has been decentralized to the academic institution by the NCAA. Division-III schools can offer only academic scholarships. They do not have any powers to offer athletic scholarships. You need to obtain information about undergraduate athletic scholarship from the athletic department at the NCAA-member school(s) in which you plan to enroll in.

Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship Program: This scholarship program was established by the NCAA in 1988 in memory of its former executive director Mr. Walter Byers. One male and one female athlete are awarded a postgraduate scholarship annually. This is to recognize their outstanding academic achievement and success potential in postgraduate study.

The goal of the Byers Scholarship is to provide recognition to an individual who has used his/her combination of mind and body to achieve national distinction in his/her achievements. Further, the recognition is also to honor his/her potential to be a leader in his chosen career field.

Each Byers Scholarship provides a stipend of $21,500 for an academic year. In case the graduate school (where the Byers Scholar is enrolled) recommends renewal of the scholarship for the second year, it can be granted based on evidence of satisfactory progress and performance.

In view of this, a review of the award amount is made every two years so that its purchasing power remains pegged close to what was envisaged in 1988 at the time when it was established.

In view of this provision is kept of a total award amount of $86,000 in a year. Dollars 43,000 of this goes to the current year's two new awardees and the balance towards renewal of the award in two equal amounts to the previous year's two awardees for the second year in running.

The actual award is made after acceptance of and evidence of proper attendance of the potential candidate at a non-profit accredited educational institution. The Byers Scholarship stipend is always paid through the institution in which the Byers scholar is admitted for graduate study. Financial need is not a criterion for the award of the scholarship.

Further, an award from any other source does not construe to be a disqualification for the award of the Byers Scholarship. The only restriction lies in that an awardee may not use more than one NCAA postgraduate scholarship.

The Walter Byers Scholarship Committee administers the award of these athletic scholarships, reviews the nominations, and selects the actual recipients. US citizenship is not mandatory for eligibility towards the award.