dab97@cornell.edu

Above is a link to one part of a trio of articles recently published by the Cornell Daily Sun researching financial aid inequalities in the Ivy League and its effect on athletic programs. With athletic scholarships outlawed by the principles of the Ivy League conference, the process of recruiting prospective athletes is much different than almost all other Division I programs. The article in the Sun delves into the issue of financial aid policies, in which athletes are processed equally with all other students. Before 1991, athletes who were being recruited by multiple Ivies could have their financial aid offers matched by the competing schools, creating a scenario where the athlete could choose the school they felt was the best fit without money as a factor. This successfully kept interconference athletics at an equal balance. However, the US Justice Dept sued the Ivy Leagues in that year on grounds that this practice was an illegal restraint of trade and a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, forcing the Ivy League schools to calculate financial aid packages according to their own independent standards.

For many prospective athletes, financial aid packages take the place of athletic scholarship and create strong ties and arguably the largest incentive toward choosing a school. Princeton, Harvard, and Yale are able to provide financial aid to students that the other Ivies cannot hope to match, and this goes for their student athletes as well. The result is that these three schools now possess an unfair recruiting advantage over the other schools in the conference. With scholarships non-existent, financial aid takes over as the most visible factor that determines which team the prospective student athlete will choose.

With these factors in mind, recruiting in the Ivy League is a very complex, collaboritve process between coaches and high-school athletes that produces a very interesting game from both perspectives. The simpler game comes from the athlete’s point, as the dominant strategy for them, assuming they are in need of aid, will almost always lie in the largest financial aid package. The coaches’ game produces many other factors and strategies. For example, an Ivy League coach has a certain number of “slots” in which he can get definite admittance for prospective athletes. This restrics the number of athletes he can recruit. Let’s say a Cornell coach is recruiting 9 players for 8 slots, knowing that one player will have to be omitted. His top recruit is also being recruited by Princeton, a school which will most definitely offer more financial aid. If the coach continues to recruit this player and omit a less valued one but the player commits to Princeton, then the coach has lost not only that player but also the player that he omitted. This creates a situation where a coach might not offer a slot to his best potential athlete if he or she knows that a better-endowed school is in competition. Financial Aid and money definitely does play a role in recruiting practices in the Ivy League.