Justin Combs, future UCLA Bruin, son of P Diddy.

[furt]

@Blake

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.

Many, many recipients of athletic scholarships – especially in football – would be unable to afford college without them. It’s very possible the scholarship given to Combs was denied to a poor kid.

That said, it’s a good investment for UCLA, given their purposes. At the division 1-A, BCS level, football teams exist as a promotional and occasionally profit-generating arm of the university, only loosely connected to the ostensible educational mission. Over the course of 4 years, the publicity value of having Justin Combs on the team will easily exceed $54,000.

[cmkeller]

Let him have his scholarship. Why should what his talents earned him be negated by the fact that his father is rich?

[MsRobyn]

I’m posting from my phone, so I can’t pull up cites, but athletic scholarships are funded by the athletic department, not by the university; Justin’s scholarship wasn’t funded on the backs of California taxpayers. Even if it were, I think you can make the argument that the elder Mr. Combs has paid enough in taxes that it wouldn’t matter.

And let’s get real here. Lots of kids of rich parents are “celebutants” who don’t do a goddamned thing with their lives except “enhance their brand”, which means to be enough of an attention whore that they get their own reality show. Justin is making something of himself, even if it’s on the basketball court. If he’s good enough that the coach of UCLA, a major basketball powerhouse, is willing to award him a scholarship, then let him take the damn scholarship. Why is he less worthy because his father happens to be rich?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@even_sven

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.

Quite a few of the people who fund scholarships are athletic boosters.

[Sitnam]

Perhaps UCLA is expecting a little mutual back scratching from an Alumnus in the future.

[MsRobyn]

I’m sorry. For some reason, I’d assumed that he had a basketball scholarship, but since he’s going to be playing football for UCLA, screw him.

MsRobyn, Trojan for Life

[Farmer_Jane]

1. Since I don’t follow high school prep football, can anyone tell me if he’s really that good? Has anyone else offered a scholarship?
2. The cost of attending UCLA as an out of state student is $51,795 a year if you factor in all of the room & board costs (well, according to UCLA - clearly we’re not factoring in beer money). The tuition is $35,564. So UCLA is also funding a rich kid’s living expenses. That’s the part that seems weird to me, even if it makes sense.
3. Colleges are a business. $52k is a drop in the bucket. No shock here. UCLA will get that money back and then some.

[Blaster_Master]

I agree that if he earned it, he has every right to use it. A school doesn’t just give out athletic scholarships willy-nilly, they will give it to players who they believe will perform well and make the program look good athletically, academically, and publically. It makes sense to want to have the son of someone so famous at their school, especially if he’s a good athlete and student and the scholarship adds extra conditions on him which may very well be more helpful than his dad just paying for his education.

If he does feel like he should turn it down so someone who needs the money can get it instead, I think they’d be better off either donating money to one of the academic departments toward scholarships or perhaps even creating creating his own sort of scholarship fund and aware it based on need or community service or whatever he believes that money would have been better spent on.

[Great_Antibob]

@Farmer_Jane

1. Since I don’t follow high school prep football, can anyone tell me if he’s really that good? Has anyone else offered a scholarship?

Apparently he has gotten offers at other FBS schools and is at least a reasonably good football player. There’s been some competition to recruit him.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Farmer_Jane

1. Since I don’t follow high school prep football, can anyone tell me if he’s really that good? Has anyone else offered a scholarship?

He also had offers from Illinois and Virginia, as well as some mid-majors.

[MilTan]

@even_sven

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.

I don’t think this is true at all, actually. If anything, universities (especially elite ones) have massively increased the amount of need-based aid they give out. Yes, the list price of a university education has increased dramatically. But the amount of financial aid given has increased commensurately, such that the average actual cost hasn’t changed much. For a specific example, Harvard completely waives college costs for anyone whose family makes $65,000 or less, with a sliding scale going up from there. The other Ivies do much the same.

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.

The money used to fund athletic scholarships at schools like UCLA comes from a completely different pool than the money used to fund academic scholarships.

[even_sven]

Please see this article, which shows that in recent years, the use of financial aid has shifted from supporting students with financial needs, and towards financial aid as a marketing tool. Need-based scholarships are now the minority:

http://higheredwatch.newamerica.net/blogposts/2011/a_troubling_milestone_for_higher_education-59952

and this report from the University of Southern California, which goes into the detail of how universities are using outside consulting services who use business algorithms to get the highest return on investment from financial aid offers, with the end result being less aid to needy students and more aid to the wealthy.

http://www.usc.edu/programs/cerpp/docs/EnrollmentManagementInc.ReportFINAL.pdf

This coincides with the other trend of university admissions becoming generally more competitive. Admissions rates have dropped steeply in recent years. Universities need to attract foreign, out-of-state, and wealthy full-tuition students to keep revenue flowing, and this means fewer spots for perfectly good in-state students who previously would have had no problem getting in. This creates all kinds of vicious circles. For example, universities are relying more on early admissions, which is disadvantageous to students with financial need, because they miss the opportunity to compare financial aid offers.

The end of needs-based aid is a real thing, and people in the industry are worried about it, but it’s a bit of an arms race and no single university can decide to pull out on their own without going under. These are the same forces that are encouraging cash-strapped universities to invest in jacuzzi-tub dorms, first-run movie palaces and other high-end amenities in order to attract full-paying well-off students (and more importantly, their parents). With decreasing state budgets, universities are having to get more and more creative with their revenue streams, and that moves them further and further away from the basic mission of providing education and more towards business operations.

There are a handful of universities with endowments so large that tuition is basically a formality, and they are able to offer a subsidized education to most people they admit. These universities, such are Harvard, are only a few in number. Incidentally, the Ivy Leagues have a complicated algorithm they use to recruit athletes, since it all becomes very boring and unsporting if they just buy whatever athletes they feel like.

Before Recruiting in Ivy League, Applying Some Math (Published 2011)

Again, athletic scholarships are a different scene, but I think it’s worth questioning the value of “merit” scholarships when they used cynically to generate revenue.