Last month the New York Times wrote about the issue of college athletes who suffer injuries and the financial pains that can accompany the physical ones in subsequent years.

            A little background:  Four years ago, the NCAA required schools to provide insurance coverage for all student-athletes who compete for them.  However, there was no minimum coverage requirement.  Schools were free to decide for themselves how much coverage to provide for their athletes.  The Times claims to have reviewed records from a cross section of colleges and universities nationwide and interviewed former athletes, trainers, administrators and NCAA officials.  The paper reports that while some colleges accept considerable responsibility for medical claims, many others assume almost none.  If coverage is too low, kids who suffer injuries have found themselves responsible for significant medical bills once they leave school and get into the job market. 

            Two examples cited in the Times article are:  A female rower from Colgate University piled up $80,000 in medical bills after injuring her back and legs.  A football player from Ohio University found he owed $1,800 in unpaid medical bills when he went to buy a car six years after his injury. 

As a rule, students, whether athletes or not, have medical insurance through their parents.  But these plans often exclude varsity sports injuries, limit out-of-state treatment or do not offer much supplemental coverage of student’s medical bills.  Some colleges buy secondary policies to fill the gaps, although even these plans have holes.  And only players who are significantly injured to the point that they require extensive care can turn to the NCAA for coverage.  Its catastrophic insurance carries a $75,000 deductible, which will increase to $90,000 next year. 

The absence of mandated coverage for athletes has prompted calls for change.  “That’s part of the cost of having an athletic program,” said David Dranove, a professor of health industry management at Northwestern University.  “It makes no more sense to tell the athletes, ‘You go buy your own health insurance’ than it does to say, ‘You go buy your own plane tickets and uniform.’ ”   

Some colleges provide extensively for their athletes but many don’t and say they cannot afford to.  In addition, there can be disagreement over who is responsible for payment or what constitutes a “medical condition”.  If an athlete’s injury is not directly attributable to athletic competition (i.e., he or she was ill prior to competing and the illness contributed to an injury) or if there was a pre-existing condition, he or she may not be covered.

The National College Players Association, an advocacy group, is lobbying for legislation to further protect athletes.  Last summer, the NCAA was required to establish a $218 million relief fund as settlement for a class-action lawsuit brought by football and basketball players who argued that their scholarships did not adequately cover certain living expenses, including medical bills.  Access to the fund, however, remains ambiguous according to the Times.  Many athletes do not know the money is available, so some of it has gone unspent.

            The best advice we can give to clients is to ask the school recruiting him or her to provide specifics on the insurance coverage they offer and have their parents ask the same of their insurance provider.  Knowing those answers should help a family decide if supplemental coverage is warranted. 

            Considering the current economic climate, most observers feel the NCAA is unlikely to require universities to provide more insurance any time soon.  “The only way to increase coverage would be to make it mandatory,” Joe D’Antonio, the chairman of the NCAA’s legislative council and associate commissioner of the Big East Conference told the Times. “It could be too demanding financially on some of our institutions.” 

Both Student Aid and College Costs Increase 

College prices rose only slightly faster than inflation in 2008, but that may say more about the steeper prices for everything in the American economy than it does about college costs. 

Tuition and fees rose 4.5 percent to 6.5 percent for various types of institutions, similar to previous years, but a 5.6-percent increase in the Consumer Price Index means that actual tuition growth was less than 1 percent in constant dollars. 

And while more student aid is available than ever before, the trend is toward more loans.  

"Trends in College Pricing 2008" and "Trends in Student Aid 2008," were released last month by the College Board. 

In 2007-8, the most recent year for which student-aid data are available, both total grant aid per student and total federal loans per student grew about 5.5 percent after inflation.  Undergraduates received an average of $8,896 in financial aid, including $4,656 in grants and $3,650 in federal loans. 

Even though grants are rising, they do not make up the difference between growing college costs and family incomes. 

After two years of holding steady at 5.2 million, the number of Pell Grant recipients grew to 5.4 million in 2007-8. 

The volume of private loans shrank by $173-million, or about 1 percent, to $19.1-billion in 2007-8.  That decline reversed years of double-digit growth and is probably the result of increased borrowing in the federal system, said Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid, a Web site with student-aid information.  A 2006 change allowed students to take out more federal loans in their first two years of college. 

According to the College Board's Annual Survey of Colleges, about 60 percent of college graduates have debt from their undergraduate studies.  For those students, the average total debt is $22,700. 

The average cost of college kept pace with inflation for the 2008-9 year.  Increases in tuition and fees typically outpace inflation, but the Consumer Price Index rose more than usual this year. 

In-state tuition and fees at public four-year institutions increased 6.4 percent from the 2007-8 year, and there was a 5.2-percent increase for out-of-state students.  In dollar amounts, in-state tuition and fees rose by $394, to $6,585, while out-of-state tuition and fees grew by $866, to $17,452. 

Private four-year institutions saw a tuition increase of 5.9 percent, with the average cost of tuition and fees at $25,143, a $1,398 increase.  Public two-year institutions saw an increase of 4.7 percent in tuition and fees, averaging $2,402, $108 more than last year. 

"Trends in College Pricing" tracks changes over a 30-year period.  From 1977-78 to 2007-8, tuition and fees grew by an average of $1,300 in inflation-adjusted dollars at public two-year colleges, by about $4,000 at public four-year institutions, and by about $15,000 at private four-year colleges.  Over the same period, average family income rose by only about $463 for the poorest 20 percent of families, $11,275 for the middle 20 percent, and $146,650 for the wealthiest 5 percent.

            Iona College, NCAA Division I, is taking the opposite approach.  The school has announced they are disbanding the football program effective immediately, citing a “lack of equitable opponents in Division I FCS” as the main factor in the decision.  The New Rochelle, NY school will redistribute resources among the remaining 21 varsity teams.

            Cal State Fullerton, NCAA Division I in Fullerton, Calif., is bringing back men’s and women’s golf for the 2009-10 school year.  It’s been more than 20 years since the Titans had either a men’s or women’s team. 

            Limestone College, NCAA Division II in Gaffney, SC, is adding two sports.  Women’s field hockey will take the field in the fall of 2009.  The Lady Saints will have the distinction of being the southernmost field hockey team in the USA and only the third in Division II south of Pennsylvania!  The school is also adding men’s volleyball as a varsity sport to begin in the spring of 2010.