TRUE COST
What will college track really cost us?
The sticker price is not the price. Pick your schools and see what families at your income typically pay, where merit aid is in play, and what each track program is allowed to offer. Every number is sourced and every assumption is shown.
1. Your family
Nothing here is saved unless you ask. Income is a band, not a number.
2. Your schools
Pick up to 3. Every college with a track program is in here, D1 through NAIA.
How athletic aid works, by division
Division I
Schools in the House settlement: no scholarship cap, track roster capped at 45, cross country at 17. Schools outside it stay at the old level: 18 scholarships for the women's team, 12.6 for the men's. The Ivy League gives none.
Official sourceDivision II
12.6 full scholarships for the women's team and 12.6 for the men's, track and cross country together, split into partial awards.
Official sourceDivision III
No athletic scholarships. Merit and need-based aid only, which is why a strong student can pay less here than at a scholarship school.
Official sourceNAIA
12 full scholarships for track and 5 for cross country. Aid to strong students counts less against the cap.
Official sourceQuestions parents ask
Is this what we will actually pay?
No. It is an estimate: a range built from federal data, each school’s own published aid numbers and the scholarship rules for its division. The only real number is the aid letter a school sends you.
Where do the numbers come from?
Sticker price, net price by income, graduation rate, earnings and debt come from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard (prices for 2024-25, net price for 2023-24). Test-score ranges and the share of students who get a grant from the school come from federal IPEDS files. Merit aid figures come from each school’s Common Data Set where the school publishes one.
How much athletic money does a track athlete get?
It depends on the division and the coach. Division III gives none. Division II and NAIA split about a dozen full scholarships across the whole team. Division I schools in the House settlement have no scholarship cap but most have not added money. We show what a program can offer, never what one athlete will get.
Why a range and not one number?
Because one number would read like a promise. The high end is what a typical family at your income pays with no athletic money. The low end adds merit aid when your academics put it in play and athletic aid split evenly across a typical roster.
Data: College Scorecard pulled 2026-10-08; IPEDS aid year 2022-23, admissions Fall 2023; House settlement list for 2026-27. Covers 974 of 985 track programs. Missing figures are left blank, never filled in. How recruiting works