Does anyone have information about how Ivy League schools are interpreting the new NCAA rules on meals for athletes? Are athletes entitled to free/reduced price meal plans?
Since there are no athletic scholarships in the Ivies, athletes aren’t entitled to any perks that aren’t available to the general student body. So, no, I don’t believe the need-based FA packages will be sweetened for athletes in the form of reduced price meal plans.
But the NCAA rules changed a year or so ago, specifically with regard to meals. As I understand it, there are special meal plans for athletes now – whether recruited or walk-on and without regard to financial need. I’d just like to get some information about how this is applied at different schools.
That’s a really good question. The ruling proposed in 2014 seemed as though it would include the Ivies, despite the fact that there are no scholarships. Robin Harris, the Executive Director of the Ivy League was quoted at that time as saying,
“As written, the new NCAA legislation on providing meals and snacks incidental to participation would also apply to Ivy League student-athletes, however, as we do with many NCAA proposals that get adopted, we will be presenting this proposal and its ramifications to the Ivy League athletics directors in May. They may decide to allow the rule to apply as written, or they may decide to make modifications.”
I don’t know if it has been adopted in the Ivies. I do know that in the spring of 2014 my D still had to make a mad dash across campus after practice to find the only open dining hall. As for free or reduced meal plans for athletes, I would think that an NCAA mandated free meal plan for an athlete would be taken into account in calculating the need-based award and the end result would be a wash. The only change might be free meals for the full-pay athletes - which probably isn’t the intent of the NCAA legislation.
Maybe the parent of a current Ivy athlete can shed more light
I thought the meal changes were for the athletic department feeding athletes - at practice, before and after games. If the athlete department provided the meal, there were rules about portion sizes and the classification as a ‘meal’ or ‘snack’ or ‘drink’ or ‘water’ and most unfair, that non-scholarship athletes couldn’t eat when food was provided (which is why D’s coach gave every player at least a small scholarship). Those restrictions are now gone and the athletic department can provide bagels and cream cheese and gatorade and unlimited spaghetti at the facilities or on the road. I think my daughter’s coach/athletic trainer has bananas and protein bars for early workouts where that might not have been allowed under the old rules.
Was there ever a restriction on the school meal plans? My daughter had the regular freshman meal plan where she could eat as much as she liked, as many times a day as she liked, at the school dining hall. This year coming up she is using her athletic scholarship money (or at least some of it) for a meal plan. The coach pays for meals when they travel and sometimes at meeting or film study. The coach has a budget, but I don’t think it is restricted by the NCAA any longer, just by the athletic director.
Why would the Ivy treat athletes any different for meal plans than for tuition, fees, books? Those aren’t reduced for athletes, and athletes are of course eligible for FA to pay for meals just like every other student.
As I understand things in the Ivy League currently, the NCAA rule change was interpreted to permit Ivy schools to provide supplemental food for athletes outside the normal meal plan rather than as a change to the meal plan per se. In my son’s experience at his school, this means that they are now provided a “snack” after practices and the like. Snack seems to be interpreted rather loosely, since one of his oft mentioned favorites has been a late night Boston Market half chicken dinner. If I remember correctly they are also getting things like breakfast burritos during morning film sessions, pizzas at night after meetings, other stuff like that. I think it is probably safe to assume that what he is getting as a football player is different than what the women’s lax team gets, because the girls would likely explode if they shoveled it in like those guys. I would also assume some variation school to school, but based on what we heard when my son was getting recruited in 2014 (primarily after the NCAA rule change but before the Ivy policy was adopted) all of the schools intended on providing additional food outside of the standard meal plan in one form or another.
One clarification I would make to @twoinanddone’s post above that may be specific to the Ivy is that as I understand it these extra meals can not be funded by the athletic department but instead are funded by the various “friends of” organizations.
That’s how I understood the rule change, Ohiodad, that there was no longer a limit on the athletic department provided meal plans (and maybe the source of the those meals/snacks?) I know that one of the big issues (whines?) when they were considering the rule changes was that some rich teams would be feeding their kids steaks and lobsters while others would have to make due with pasta. In a small bit of sanity, the NCAA said ‘we don’t care’ and some teams might eat better than others.
Many years ago my brother went to a football camp at U of Oklahoma, where he was told a rancher donated a steer every week so the team could have steak every day. That was all stopped after the rules on boosters became tighter and training tables had to be under regular univeristy rules. I believe the beef is on again.
With the new rules, the girls lax team can serve as much as the football team if they want to. The old rules limited all teams to the same size portions, and that was one argument, that football boys needed more than a square of lasagna - they were hungry!
But to the original question, I think there will be no change to meal plans, just to food supplied by or through the athletic department, before or after games, when traveling, at practice or at practice facilities. How much students pay for a meal plan is still set by the school.
I haven’t seen a bill for next year yet, but we paid list price for my son’s meal plan this year. He is an Ivy student athlete. And, agree with above comments about differentiating standard meal plans from food provided in relation to athletic participation.
It might vary from school to school. I’ve definitely heard from some Ivy athletes who are not on financial aid that they will have free meal plans this year.
@novicemom26, I would be very surprised if any Ivy was not billing athletes for meal plans. I don’t have time to look it up right now, but my gut tells me such a policy would violate the Ivy Common Agreement in regards to Financial Aid. Leaving that aside, and considering that the rule change happened in 2014, one would think that if someone was going to not charge for meal plans it would have happened this year. Like @startingblock, we were billed this year for our son’s meal plan. I don’t know where @startingblock’s progeny attends, but I feel confident that if some school had upped the ante on aid to blanket cover meal plans, Princeton, where my son attends, would have followed suit. It’s not like they need the money.
In addition, and as @varska and @twoinanddone intimate above, the real point of the NCAA rule change is not to increase scholarship or aid amount to cover meal plans. Realize that virtually all of these types of rule changes are driven by football and men’s basketball, which are head count sports where everyone is on a full meal plan already. In reality, the rule change is an acknowledgement that the ban on training table was stupid, and that atheletes have different caloric and nutritional requirements than non athletes, and that they operate on a very different schedule.
And I think it would be an NCAA violation for any school, Ivy or not, to charge a different fee for athletes and non athletes in the room and board categories, or tuition for that matter. That would be like giving them a scholarship that isn’t counted against the team scholarship limits.
The schools I’ve heard about are Harvard and Penn.
@novicemom26, the last billing statement I received from Harvard had a charge of 2724. for board for the semester in addition to the tuition, room, etc. (this was prior to the adoption of the NCAA meal/snacks for athletes rule) If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that there are athletes at Penn and Harvard that are not on any FA, but their (Harvard) bill is let’s say 30,000 for the semester, less a 3000 credit for their board because they are athletes.
I’m guessing that this credit would dry up if they quit the team. If that’s the case, it sure seems to fly in the face in the Common Ivy Agreement that @Ohiodad51 mentioned. which says in part,
I have no first hand experience, but I can see how this could be nearly a free meals for full-pay athletes. We know there are at least some supplemental meals/snacks provided, and if a full-pay athlete were to opt out of a school meal plan they could theoretically eat a good amount of food through the athletic department provided snacks, etc. But that’s not the same as offering a legit meal plan at a discount to an athlete. And I’m not even sure how well that would work in practice.
First, it wouldn’t work for freshmen as I believe most Ivies have mandatory meal plans for freshmen. And it wouldn’t work for students receiving financial aid as declining a meal plan would just directly reduce the amount of the grant/aid.
But no, there’s no special discounted meal plan price for athletes
Based on an article written by the sports dietitian at Princeton, it appears no changes are planned with regard to the cost of meal plans at that school for student athletes. It does sound like more pre- and post-workout nutritional options are/will be offered there. “Any funds earmarked for nutrition should ideally be directed toward recovery and competition fueling rather than on providing meals that could be covered by a meal plan.”
More broadly however, the same article states that inside the Ivy league, “rather than set arbitrary limits, each university will implement the rule change in a manner it feels best meets the needs of its students and department.”
Perhaps this supports the idea that some Ivy schools are/will be providing subsidized/free meal plans to athletes?
The article, “A Better Way,” is the last of several found on this web page (you will need to scroll down toward the bottom as it is the last one on the page): http://training-conditioning.com/2014/08/31/opening_the_pantry/index.php
@varska, please tell me you framed your last tuition bill.
^^ I couldn’t afford to 
I guess schools could go back to training tables for athletes, separate from the regular meal plans. Way back when, I worked at the dining hall that was also the kitchen for the football and basketball teams (they lived in a dorm next to this dorm). For breakfast, they had to eat with the great unwashed (mostly freshmen) in the ‘front’ dining hall. No restrictions on the amount of food they ate, and it was not 2 eggs and a glass of milk for breakfast, more like 6 eggs, pancakes, meat, potatoes, and 8 glasses of milk. For lunch and dinner, they ate in the ‘back’ room and it was not the same food the rest of the students were eating. They ate ‘family style’ with platters of food put on their tables and not surprisingly, most of the those platters came back empty (I worked the dishwasher a lot).
I have no idea how they were billed for their room and board, but of course it was all full scholarship at the D1 school. Students in the dining room had stickers on their ID’s with the meal plan listed (remember, olden days, no swiping or computers), but the athletes just grumbled ‘football’ or ‘basketball’ at me as they entered. I think it was more internal bookkeeping where the athletic department paid the housing and meals department. Then the NCAA stepped in and no more training tables.
I think the athletic departments can provide the food, but I can’t see them being able to credit a regular student meal plan and not have it be an athletic scholarship. I also can’t see athletes getting by on athletic department snacks and drinks. My daughter complains that when they travel they don’t get enough money to buy all the food they want. They’ll get like $15 for dinner at Olive Garden or $10 for lunch at Chipotle. She complains that her boyfriend’s coach is smarter and just orders for the team, big pans of ziti or spaghetti, so there is more food. Even 5’4" girls want FOOD and massive amounts of it.