Ok, so I've followed most of the discussion regarding why Clemson is at a competitive disadvantage with respect to scholarships as it relates to schools that are in the "Academic Common Marketplace" or whatever it is called. However, I'm having a bit of a difficult time understanding the endowment discrepancy.
Now, before everyone hops on here and explains to me what an endowment is, I am fully aware of not only what it is, but it's purpose and how the funds are used. According to Wikipedia, Vandy has an endowment of a tad over $4 billion. If they earn around 10% (humor me here, it makes the math easy), then that means they generate about $400 million every year in revenue to use for operations. That's a lot of cheese. I'm sure there is a substantial portion that money that goes to scholarships, including for low-income students who need some help to pay a Vandy tuition, kids who score a 1580 on their SAT and are deciding between Duke, Vandy and Brown, etc. You get the point.
I would imagine, at least based on the message board fodder, that Vandy will award Frank the baseball player an "academic" scholarship to help offset enrollments costs that aren't covered by the AD....which in theory are limited by the NCAA.
However, here is my question. So, while Clemson doesn't have Vandy's endowment, the university still kicks out some decent money from our $600-700 million endowment. Let's call it $60 million a year, giving us the same rate of return that Vandy gets. Why can't those dollars go to give the same dadgum "academic" scholarships to Clemson players that Vandy's players get? That's is THE missing piece to this that I don't understand.
For context, my wife and I started donating $1,000 a year to Clemson to pay for a need-based annual scholarship for a student. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but hopefully it will help a poorer student receive a great education and enjoy a great Clemson experience. I only tell y'all this because Clemson basically let us design the criteria on how to use it. While we did not get all that granular with how the funds were to use (we just wanted it to be "need based"), I think we could have put restrictions on it like:
Must a be a student from Horry County who had a grandfather who played the violin between the year 1920-1922.
Essentially, if you donate the funds, you create the criteria. So, with all that being said, what is to stop donors from saying, "Here is $10,000 each year to pay for an academic scholarship for a baseball player."
While Clemson doesn't have Vandy money, they could come up with a few hundred grand in about 3.5 minutes if this were allowed.
What am I missing?
Now, before everyone hops on here and explains to me what an endowment is, I am fully aware of not only what it is, but it's purpose and how the funds are used. According to Wikipedia, Vandy has an endowment of a tad over $4 billion. If they earn around 10% (humor me here, it makes the math easy), then that means they generate about $400 million every year in revenue to use for operations. That's a lot of cheese. I'm sure there is a substantial portion that money that goes to scholarships, including for low-income students who need some help to pay a Vandy tuition, kids who score a 1580 on their SAT and are deciding between Duke, Vandy and Brown, etc. You get the point.
I would imagine, at least based on the message board fodder, that Vandy will award Frank the baseball player an "academic" scholarship to help offset enrollments costs that aren't covered by the AD....which in theory are limited by the NCAA.
However, here is my question. So, while Clemson doesn't have Vandy's endowment, the university still kicks out some decent money from our $600-700 million endowment. Let's call it $60 million a year, giving us the same rate of return that Vandy gets. Why can't those dollars go to give the same dadgum "academic" scholarships to Clemson players that Vandy's players get? That's is THE missing piece to this that I don't understand.
For context, my wife and I started donating $1,000 a year to Clemson to pay for a need-based annual scholarship for a student. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but hopefully it will help a poorer student receive a great education and enjoy a great Clemson experience. I only tell y'all this because Clemson basically let us design the criteria on how to use it. While we did not get all that granular with how the funds were to use (we just wanted it to be "need based"), I think we could have put restrictions on it like:
Must a be a student from Horry County who had a grandfather who played the violin between the year 1920-1922.
Essentially, if you donate the funds, you create the criteria. So, with all that being said, what is to stop donors from saying, "Here is $10,000 each year to pay for an academic scholarship for a baseball player."
While Clemson doesn't have Vandy money, they could come up with a few hundred grand in about 3.5 minutes if this were allowed.
What am I missing?
