Lehigh Football Nation
January 7th, 2010, 03:42 PM
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/05/qt/ivies_force_cornell_to_modify_aid_for_athletes
Cornell University, in the face of opposition from the Ivy League, has stopped including athletes in a financial aid enhancement announced a year ago. Under the program, selected groups of students who qualified for need-based aid and who were particularly desirable to the university -- including some athletes -- had the parental contributions in their aid packages reduced. "While we thought that including student-athletes with demonstrated need among those eligible for enhanced need-based aid awards meets Ivy League standards and practices, the league did not agree," said Simeon Moss, a spokesman for Cornell.
This is interesting for two reasons.
1) It looks like it's business as usual when it comes to the operation of the Ivy League: zero transparency, and quizzical decisions that only further the further athletic hegemony of the Richest Three (Harvard, Yale and Princeton) over the "Other Five". I'd love a full explanation from the league office as to how Cornell's enhancement package wrecks competitiveness in the IL - or, in other words, how, in today's world, the "Other Five" can compete with H-Y-P athletically.
2) Could this be a "shot across the bow" of the PL, too? Cornell - in some ways, Colgate's twin - tried to, in effect, edge towards the PL's "Grant-in-aid" model for some athletes, and ran into a brick wall with the IL leadership. Might this be a preview of what happens with IL OOC games if the PL implements scholarships? If nothing else it signals a retreat to "ideological purity".
Cornell University, in the face of opposition from the Ivy League, has stopped including athletes in a financial aid enhancement announced a year ago. Under the program, selected groups of students who qualified for need-based aid and who were particularly desirable to the university -- including some athletes -- had the parental contributions in their aid packages reduced. "While we thought that including student-athletes with demonstrated need among those eligible for enhanced need-based aid awards meets Ivy League standards and practices, the league did not agree," said Simeon Moss, a spokesman for Cornell.
This is interesting for two reasons.
1) It looks like it's business as usual when it comes to the operation of the Ivy League: zero transparency, and quizzical decisions that only further the further athletic hegemony of the Richest Three (Harvard, Yale and Princeton) over the "Other Five". I'd love a full explanation from the league office as to how Cornell's enhancement package wrecks competitiveness in the IL - or, in other words, how, in today's world, the "Other Five" can compete with H-Y-P athletically.
2) Could this be a "shot across the bow" of the PL, too? Cornell - in some ways, Colgate's twin - tried to, in effect, edge towards the PL's "Grant-in-aid" model for some athletes, and ran into a brick wall with the IL leadership. Might this be a preview of what happens with IL OOC games if the PL implements scholarships? If nothing else it signals a retreat to "ideological purity".