COLUMBIA, Mo. - A topic that continues to gain national notoriety in college athletics is how universities are supporting their student-athletes beyond the traditional scholarship assistance. At the University of Missouri, the athletics department has successfully implemented the Student-Athlete Assistance Fund to the benefit of all eligible student-athletes for over a decade.
The Student-Athlete Assistance Fund (SAF), was first established by the NCAA to help provide direct benefits to student-athletes who demonstrated financial need at all member institutions. Since that time, the NCAA opened the door for institutions to provide assistance to all student-athletes, to assist with the non-scholarship cost of attending Mizzou.
In particular, the SAF is used to assist student-athletes in meeting financial needs that arise in conjunction with participation in intercollegiate athletics, enrollment in an academic curriculum family emergencies or medical bills not covered by departmental policy.
At Mizzou, all student-athletes, including international, are eligible to receive benefits via the assistance fund. During the 2013-14 academic school year, Mizzou Athletics received about $360,000 that could be distributed to their student-athletes. Categories of benefits provided from SAF include academics, life skills, sports psychology, Total Person Program (TPP), consulting, medical, dental, clothing allowance, summer school, and technology.
In the 2013-14 school year, Mizzou Athletics disbursed funds from the Student-Athlete Assistance Fund to specific areas such as the annual ROARS awards night, Coaching America trip, and new clothing for events such as SEC Media Days.
Senior Associate Athletics Director, Mary Austin, has been present since the inception of the Student-Athlete Assistance Fund and is proud of the focus that Mizzou Athletics puts on helping their student-athletes.
"Something we have heard that is unique to Mizzou is our emphasis on making sure every student-athlete benefits from the fund," Austin said. "Several of our Olympic sport transfers were not even aware the fund existed at their previous school or knew that it was only provided to revenue sports student-athletes. Mizzou encourages all 550 of our student-athletes to take advantage of the clothing and supplies portion. Furthermore, the rest of the budgeted items are geared to benefit as many student-athletes as possible including assistance with trips home over break for those who cannot afford to do so otherwise."
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