Justin Combs, son of Sean ‘P Diddy’ Combs whose net worth is estimated at $550 million, is a blue chip football prospect who graduated with a 3.75 GPA. He has been offered an athletic scholarship valued at $54,000 per year. The scholarship is purely merit based and comes from the athletic department budget, i.e. no taxpayer dollars.
There are a few heads calling on Justin to give up the scholarship and ask dad to foot the bill. Justin’s take: I earned it. I agree.
There was an Oprah episode with Denzel Washington where he talked about his son getting a football scholarship. Denzel told the coach that he had ‘a few dollars.’ And the coach came back with, “All due respect. We offered the scholarship to your son, not you.”
Even if he technically doesn’t need it to survive, I would guess the same is true of 99% of the scholarship winners, and nobody asks them to sponge off Mommy and Daddy for four years.
Just being independent of your parents at that age is a really big deal. Even if they do help you out financially, knowing that you don’t need them is a huuuge deal to an 18yo.
In this case, though, I can’t get upset about the kid getting the scholarship. Athletic scholarships are governed by the NCAA and have various requirements attached to them. Schools are limited in the numbers of scholarships they can award, recipients are responsible for maintaining a certain GPA to maintain eligibility, and so forth. Basically, an athletic scholarship puts on an additional layer of accountability to the program and the college that wouldn’t exist otherwise. And since the college only has so many of these scholarships to award, the coach has to be selective in who he awards one to.
That being said, young Mr. Combs is in an awkward position. He’s being criticized for getting a scholarship when his father can clearly afford to pay his tuition. However, if his father paid his way through school, he would be accused of buying his son’s position on the team.
Finally, this may work out to the university’s benefit. The elder Mr. Combs may well make a rather large donation to the university at some point.
Other than the fact that it’s a bit odd to describe a scholarship to a school as “merit based” along with “coming from the athletic department”, then I agree with the sentiment that he earned it and it is his. Who his father is has no bearing on the matter.
Yep. And FWIW, the actual cost to the school is slight - it needs to be valued at the *marginal *cost of providing room/board/books etc., which isn’t much, and not at full retail price, which most students don’t pay anyway. So, it wouldn’t take much of a tax-deductible donation from Diddy to the school for them to come out ahead.
As Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty said of his prize bull Bubba Smith: “Scholarships here are based on need, and I need him.”
Meh. There’s quite a slippery slope here. If the children of the super-rich should waive their scholarships, who else should? The rich? The merely comfortable? I would refuse the scholarship (if my parents were worth $500 million and willing to pay my way) but I can’t very well fault anyone else for not doing it.
P. Diddy might be kinda old-= school and expect youngster to take care of his own college tuition. People often assume that it is universal for parents to want to cover the bill, but that just isn’t so.
I think he has every right to take the money. Let’s be honest here, Diddy has so much money that even going to college is not going to really matter much for his son wrt to financial success. So if you argue he shouldn’t take a scholarship that someone else needs, you could also say he doesn’t need an enrollment slot either.
That said, given the financial stress the UCs are under, and his net worth, I think Diddy should be a little embarrassed to have his son take the money without maybe offering a scholarship to UCLA for a few other students to “even things out”.
I doubt it. He brought his son a $300k+ Maybach for his 16th birthday. And then bought another one for his 17th birthday. He doesn’t seem to be a heavy believer in bootstrapping.
I wouldn’t ever feel sorry for them, but it’s not like the children of the rich and famous have the easiest of time creating their own personal self-image, separate from the parent. I think it speaks to both a good kid and good parenting that this young man had the drive to this on his own. To take that away would be a shame, diminishing everything he should be proud of.
I bet the alumni association starts twisting some arms soon enough. I have no problem with this and would have no problem if he received a football scholarship at my school, as long as he’s there to play football. Or an academic scholarship if he’s there to be a serious student only. Just wish my dad had bought me a car when I was sixteen, much less a Maybach.
It would be nice if Combs turned down the scholarship, or gave a donation to the university as a way of saying “thank you,” but he’s certainly not a bad person if he doesn’t. He’s earned it, so let him enjoy the fruits of his labor.
Kevin Love, son of an NBA player and nephew of The Beach Boy’s Mike Wilson, got a scholarship to play basketball at UCLA. He certainly didn’t need the help.
Should children of rich parents not seek employment, on the grounds that they would simply be taking jobs away from others who need them more? But then they’d be criticized for being spoiled asses… They can’t win.
Unfortunately, we are in the last era of “need-based scholarships,” which have traditionally been used to open up college to students who could not otherwise afford to attend. Instead, the pool of financial aid is being used as a marketing tool- what used to be a single scholarship that would get a qualified-but-needy student through a program is now parceled out, using sophisticated business marketing software often implemented by outside consulting firms, to several often-wealthy “average” students as a “bonus” to entice them to that particular campus.
These well-off students will then stay in the premium dorms, attend pricey summer workshops and fuel other revenue-generating activities, creating a good return on the scholarship investment- something the needy student probably won’t do. A fund that used to get, say, ten needy students entirely through college, is now being used to to give 1,000 a small discount that doesn’t make a difference in whether or not they are able to attend university, but may convince them to go to your campus.
Scholarships are being used as coupons targeted at high-spending customers, essentially, rather than anything “scholarly.” It has had a bad effect on college accessibility, especially in these tough times.
Of course, this situation, as a sports scholarship, is different. But I think it does open up an important debate. I certainly think that the people who fund scholarships meant that money to be used to broaden academic access and attract the best-and-brightest, rather than as an advertising tool designed to create revenue for things like on-campus spas and rock-climbing walls.