Episode Transcript
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[00:01:10] Speaker B: welcome to this week's edition of in the Clubhouse with EMD Baseball. I'm Andy Kirakidis, joined by my Wonderful Co host, Mr. Keith Glasser. How are we doing, sir?
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Great.
[00:01:19] Speaker C: How are you?
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Good, good, good. We are going to talk about finances today.
I think that this is an important topic specifically now matters for Division 1. We can get into that. While, you know, most programs aren't fully funded and there's, you know, full scholarships are still, while more prevalent than they've been, are still fairly rare. But I think this is a really important conversation for student athletes and families that are being recruited by Division 3 schools.
And the angle I want to come at this from is kind of the preparation and the understanding of, and some of the things you can do to better understand what the financial situation at a particular school is going to be and the types of schools that are going to provide that.
Colleges, it's, it's expensive. It always has been expensive. But you get into the private school portion of this world or the high academic portion of this world and some of the price tags are, you know, they're pretty darn high.
And what oftentimes happen is that you get families who make enough money where they may not qualify for financial aid because their tax returns say that they make a certain amount of money.
But in order to pay for $80,000 worth of school, I think it's pretty obvious to say that, you know, even the family that makes quite a bit of money, you know, $80,000 of expendable income isn't always that accessible. And I think families need to take the time to really take a look at what they're willing to spend, what is feasible for a family to spend or if the student athlete is going to be taking out loans. But there's some mechanisms out there, there's some tools out there that can allow you to get a pretty good understanding of what it's going to be and then also how you can get at some of the merit based stuff. So that's where I kind of want to take this one today. What are your, what are your thoughts on this? You've been on this side of it at a super high end academic school where I know this conversation has come up.
What advice do you have for families?
[00:03:41] Speaker C: College is expensive.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: I mean at the Division 3 level, which is probably where the majority of this conversation is surrounding, it's going to be merit based and need based.
So you'll have to fill out the, you'll have to submit the fafsa.
Some schools will have you fill out the CSS profile which is a little bit more in depth, that's more school specific.
And then based off of those, they are going to come up with a EFC which is an estimated family contribution that they are going to essentially use their mathematical formulas to determine and say you can afford this much for you go to school. We can meet to this point and essentially say that you can pay. The rest of also might go over that based off of the merit scholarship money you get. Merit scholarship money is going to be based off of your academic, your transcript, your SAT scores, your extracurriculars, things of that nature everyone kind of slots into. There's a certain amount of money that everyone this grade, this GPA with this SAT gets X amount of dollars, so on and so forth. There's a kind of a matrix I suppose to it.
And then you know, extracurriculars and stuff in there will, can boost you up.
You know the one thing that I always told people when I was the head coach at RPI or even when I was the assistant is to appeal your financial aid package. I believe, I would imagine and I believe that you can appeal your financial aid package at pretty much every institution in the country.
The worst thing that happens is they say no, we can't give you any more money, right? Like they don't review it and not be like on second hot thought, we're actually going to take money back from you. That's not necessarily what's going to happen, but if you, you know, write a well crafted letter and as to why you might need some more money, you know, generally speaking they're, they're going to probably try to do their best to. To try to get a couple more. Couple more bucks in your pocket for you to not pay to go to that school.
Generally speaking, I want to be very clear in that, like, generally speaking, there is more money available in the early decision 1 and 2 pools than there are in the regular. That does not mean that you automatically get more money.
It just generally means along the same lines of, you know, those. Those acceptance rates are generally a little bit higher than what the. The regular admission would be.
It's just because there's less applicants in the pool, and most of them who are applying early decision are going to be very strong applicants to that decision deadline. So, generally speaking, you get the best financial aid package in those decision models. Right.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: It's. It's important to note that at the
[00:06:44] Speaker D: Division 3 level, you can't, like, the coaches can't do anything about your financial aid package.
Like, you can't. I could not call financial aid and be like, hey, I really like Andy Kirikittis.
Could we throw an extra five grand, Adam, to make this work?
Do I. Am I naive to think that that doesn't happen somewhere in this country?
No, but the overwhelming majority of places, I would argue 99.9% of them coaches, can't move the needle at all. At the Division 3 level, from a financial standpoint, it's designed that way. You're not supposed to be able to do it.
But, you know, I think the other thing that's probably worth noting in the financial piece is that there is. Most schools have something for a change in family circumstance, right, where someone gets sick, someone gets hurt, they can't work, they give you cash, which is just as good as money.
But for you aflac parents out there remember the duck.
But if you get a financial aid package and somewhere along the line, like, you know, something comes up that is completely unexpected. Most schools will have a change in family circumstance where you kind of fill out the paperwork and they reevaluate where your financial standing is, and then, you know, generally can meet your need for what you're trying to do or for what you need from a money standpoint at that school.
Where else do you want to go with this?
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think you hit on the big pieces like there's mechanisms to get money. And I think you highlighted one of the bigger ones because this has come up frequently of, like, well, at the Division 3 level, specifically, like, well, can they. Can the coaches, like, help us with money?
And the hard answer is no, like, the financial aid office has their formulas, the merit based portion of it. If the school offers merit based money, they have formulas to provide that money. And the coaches, they are not in contact with financial aid.
But I think the other thing that is important to understand because you hit on all the mechanisms which I think are, it's important for people to understand the process of which this kind of all plays out.
I think oftentimes families go into the situation and don't do some of the homework ahead of time.
And you can, pretty much every single school either has a generic cost calculator or they have a cost calculator. That is, that's algorithm is built a little bit more specifically to how they dole out their financial aid.
And you can get a pretty good estimate of what that financial aid package is going to be if you go in and you truthfully punch in those numbers.
Now if you, if you lowball, you know, your tax returns, don't be surprised if you don't get as much money on the back end. But if you're honest with the money, if you're honest with your finances and you provide that information, you can get a pretty good understanding of am I going to get money, am I going to get any money?
What's that package potentially going to look like?
And then you can generally do some research on what the merit base might look like. And you can certainly have that conversation with a coach. And that coach should be, you know, if they, if they're going down the line with you to bring you on campus and talk about, you know, a roster spot, they should be able to submit your academic stuff and get an understanding of what the merit base might be.
But I think there's, there's some things that families can do ahead of time is like really sit down and plan in terms of this is how much we can afford, right? And because it might change your school list, there's some kids who might be academically in a place where they can go to a NESCAC school or an Ivy League school, right? We're not getting any merit based money at any of those schools.
It's all going to be financial aid. So if you're in that spot as a family where you make enough money, where you're probably not going to get much financial aid, if any at all, but finances are tighter than they might look on the bottom line, maybe you've got two younger kids that you're trying to plan for or if you got kids who are in college, whatever it might be, you can figure out all right, well, this is what my budget is basically.
And now you can look at other schools that might offer an education that is close to or a place that you can go be really successful, but you might get 25 grand off the top because you're a great student.
And I think these are things that sometimes don't get thought about until later in the process when I think it's really important to think about that at the beginning of the process. And like, what's your cost benefit analysis? Like, if you could get into an Amherst and you're not going to get any financial aid, is that education worth it for you? For a lot of people it might be.
But if that's just not a number that you can digest financially, well, now we need to adjust the schools that we're going to look at and I think families need to dig in a little bit and think about that. Because you don't want to get to the back end of the process and fall in love with the school and then look at the price tag and go, oh, we can't afford that.
We should have known months ago that that wasn't going to be a really good option. It doesn't waste your time. It also doesn't waste the coach's time.
And everybody's time in this process is really valuable.
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[00:13:33] Speaker B: well, I
[00:13:33] Speaker D: think it's the one thing too, especially at the academic. In the academic world, no one is ever going to be upset with you if it's the finances are not going to work right, which is why, especially if they're recruiting you, they want to try to get to that answer as quickly as they possibly can because they don't want to waste their time and they don't want to waste your time.
It is uncomfortable for most people involved in those situations. But the reality is, you know, we all know the sticker price of college at this point in time, especially at some of these higher end academic schools. You're talking, you know, mid-80s and, and up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from an all in cost, right? Like not just tuition, like room and board fees, everything. You know, you're, you're 85 plus easy all day at this level.
So you know what some schools do? Give out merit scholarship money, some schools don't. Some schools meet full needs, some schools don.
What does that look like? And, and having an understanding of where that is. And it's an easy, it's an easy find, right? Like you can just go on their website, go to the admissions and financial aid office and it'll tell you flat out what they do and how, what the estimated costs are and how they package people, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you can have a pretty good understanding of what that looks like because you're right, it can change your school list, right? Like hey, I want to go to
[00:15:06] Speaker B: toughs.
[00:15:06] Speaker D: Yeah, it's going to cost me $95,000 a year.
You don't have that. That's probably, could be a non, that it should be a non starter, right? Like that's just what it is, you know, so it's, it's important to know, it's important to at least be at least semi educated in some of this stuff, right? Like have an idea of what it costs, like what's the all in tuition cost at the, at this, at X school and what do they do from a financial aid standpoint. And then you know, if you are getting recruited, it's generally going to be one of the first couple questions that's going to be asked because they don't want to waste their time and again they don't want to waste yours either, right? Like if it's something where you know it's not going to be affordable for you, it's, yeah, it sucks. But I would rather know early and you would rather know early, right? Like hey, this isn't something that's going to be affordable for us.
Okay, on to the next. And it's not. So I think people sometimes shy away from it. But the, at the high academic level it's, it is way more common than you think it is where it's just like, hey, like really appreciate it but we're, we're not going to be able to afford X school. Okay, thanks for letting me know. If anything changes in the future, reach back out. You know, we'd love to have another conversation, but hey, man, I get it.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: You know, it's such a common conversation at those schools. Like every one of those coaches has had that conversation of, hey, look, let's, let's kick the tires. Let's find out what the answer is to this. Let's figure out what your financial aid might look like. Let's see.
And if it's not going to work, best of luck to you. Nobody's trying to get somebody to pay something that they can't afford. All these coaches have experienced that. And with that being said, I would say that a lot of these schools have mechanisms to get.
They have some pretty cool stuff. And a lot of these schools have gone on to implement some different financial stuff with. If you're below a certain threshold, you can go for free. Basically, like your tuition is covered.
So this isn't one of those things where, you know, you either get none or you get a little bit.
You know, some of these schools work really hard to make sure that that can be accessible to certain families and make that affordable. I know that was the case when I was ambassadors. I forget what the number was. I'm sure it's gone up significantly, Hashtag inflation.
But there was a, there was a, a number where if a family's household income was below a certain number of kids could come for free. And, you know, that allowed us to get a couple guys to come to school because that type of education for basically room and board is pretty tough to turn down when you're talking about what the, what that diploma does for you in the long run. So.
[00:17:59] Speaker D: Right.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: I think the only other thing I want to add about the financial piece is there's been a lot of changes.
You know, there's no more 25% minimum.
You can have up to 34 full scholarships.
While the full scholarship is more prevalent than it's been specifically at the highest levels of division one, it's not out of the norm for, you know, in today's day and age to get a full ride.
But most of the mid to lower Division 1 schools are still not going to be able to hand out full rides to everybody. And when you get to that, like, bottom third of Division 1, I would venture to guess that the vast majority of them are still operating very closely to the old model, minus the 25% minimum for athletic scholarships. So understand that if you're getting recruited at some of those levels that there's a good chance that you're going to have to fit some, you're going to have to foot some of the bill.
You know, like at a school like Maris where we went, I, you know, I don't want to speak for Lance, but like, I'm pretty sure Lance doesn't have 34 scholarships that he can dole out.
He's gotta divvy that up and basically put a price tag on guys.
You know, you're, I think you're worth 50 of a full scholarship, right? That's, you know, they're still kind of operating under the old model in terms of how they have to make some decisions on value of a player, positionally, what they think they're going to be able to contribute and do some of that stuff. So just to understand, if you're a listener, if you're kind of mid to low tier division one type guy or your division two type guy, there are mechanisms to get money. They can stack. They might be able to give you a little baseball, a little bit of merit, a little bit of financial aid, but the full ride thing gets blown out of proportion. I think some people go in to this thinking like, well, If a Division 1 school calls me, I'm going to get a full ride. When the reality is is that most schools don't have the capability to do that.
Which means you still need to do your homework a little bit and kind of have an idea of, you know, the types of schools that might be a fit for you financially. Because as we know and we've talked about, it's expensive and something that needs to be a part of the planning process.
[00:20:24] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Anything else you want to add?
[00:20:30] Speaker E: I do not.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: All right, well, thank you everybody for listening. Tune in next week. We will talk to you then. Thank you.
Thank you for listening this week.
[00:20:40] Speaker E: If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and smash
[00:20:44] Speaker B: that like button for us.
[00:20:45] Speaker E: Check us out on Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts as well as Spotify. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram MD Baseball. If you want to find out what me and Keith do to help find families and players, navigate the recruiting process, go ahead and check us out on emdbaseball.com take a few minutes to check out our new online academy. I promise you'll get some good information out of that. Thanks again for listening. Check in with you next week.
