RE: Scholarship Freeze Policy
Trying to bring all the pieces together, everything seems to indicate that TribeHeart's suggestion early in this thread was correct -- that this is not a permanent "policy" change, but rather a situation in which "scholarship monies are frozen only for a current academic year, then it is understandable, as the Dept, like any business, has to budget and manage."
We know, I think, that this has been a challenging year for fundraising for a variety of reasons -- the tax law change, fallout from the Shaver firing, etc. So it would make sense that there's not ample money to go around this year, as the Hawthorne email suggests in referring to "modest reductions across the board."
Ms. Huge's email tells us that "William & Mary Athletics provides each sport program with an annual scholarship budget" (although for some programs -- swimming was mentioned -- that budget apparently can be zero, but at least the athletes in those programs knew the situation coming in). She also indicates that "[s]cholarship budgets vary by sport and can change from year to year based on several factors, including fundraising success, budget availability, and financial aid costs as determined by the university." It's not hard to conclude that this might be a year in which scholarship budgets were down -- not due to a policy change, but simply as a matter of fact.
No doubt, in a year when the departmental coffers are flush with cash (is there ever such a year at W&M?), the athletic administration would love to fund scholarships as fully as possible. One can only hope that, in a year when funds apparently were lacking, trimming scholarship funds was a last resort. (On the other hand, if that's true and yet it had to be done, then the financial problems must be pretty substantial).
(This post was last modified: 09-19-2019 09:30 PM by Blow Gym rat.)
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