Student-Athletes Losing Scholarships: Another Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

By now, the world of sports has already felt the impact that the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has brought upon not just to the fans but most importantly, to the athletes. Games and seasons are either postponed or canceled altogether. People who rely on games don't earn as much money as they needed to for them to weather this pandemic. Psychologically, the absence of sports and physical exercise, in general, has a direct impact on the mental health of players, and financially, leagues are losing by the billions of Dollars for every game that they don't play.  

And the sad thing is: those aren't even the worst things that this pandemic has brought upon us.

While one of the financial blows that this pandemic has is that players who rely on their collegiate career to fund their education won't be able to as most of the leagues have already been canceled, what about those student-athletes who are relying on their games to keep their scholarships? Unfortunately, they are impacted too. 

Just today, a report came out that around 30 student-athletes from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) whose men's basketball team made it to the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) Finals last year, are set to lose their scholarship starting next term due to the ongoing pandemic. According to the university's student publication, "The Varsitarian", most of the said student-athletes are playing for the Team Bs of the school in different sports. 

In a separate statement, the UST management has assured that no student-athlete will be losing his scholarship and that, the said scholarships for student-athletes will not be affected by the school's cost-cutting measures during these trying times. 

In the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Colegio de San Juan de Letran, who won the men's basketball championship last year, has announced that the school will limit scholarships that they are offering for student-athletes as part of their cost-cutting measures. Aside from this, Letran has already withdrawn from nine NCAA events for Season 96 including volleyball. Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP) meanwhile disbanded their basketball team due to the pandemic too.

In the US NCAA, some schools have gone as far as to reduce their sports programs just to be able to survive this pandemic. The Old Dominion Unversity is among those schools that decided to cut down their expenses on athletics as ending the school's wrestling program, for example, would allow the school to save up to one million Dollars. Fortunately, incoming and current wrestlers for Old Dominion University would get to keep their athletic scholarship for an additional year but that doesn't make things easier especially for those who were supposed to play in their final years in the collegiate ranks. 

Just to put it in simple words, nearly 100 college sports programs of different schools in the United States alone were cut down as a result of the initial financial fallout brought about by the pandemic and this was last month. And with no vaccine against COVID-19 yet in sight, the worse is yet to come especially for student-athletes who are relying on sports to fund their education. 

Photo is from LRT Sports