UH’s athletic stipends remain same

The University of Hawaii athletic department expects to keep its cost of attendance stipends at the same level for the 2017-18 school year, likely placing it in the bottom half of the Mountain West Conference.

Scholarship athletes at UH received $1,500-$2,000 each, depending on their sport, for the just-concluded academic year, the school said.

That was up from the $1,000-$1,089 paid out by UH in 2015-16, the first year of stipends.

If it had the money, UH said, it would be permitted to pay as much as $3,002 per scholarship athlete under guidelines set by the NCAA.

“We’re still trying to grow and we did grow from the first year. It is just that we’re just not going to grow this year,” athletic director David Matlin said Tuesday. “The next two years, I think, will be a little challenging, too. But the goal is still to head in that (upward) direction.”

Matlin said the athletic department will contribute approximately $1,000 per athlete, adjusted for Title IX, with individual sports required to raise additional money to provide funding above that level.

UH has approximately 250 scholarship athletes.

Some schools are still determining their COA figures for 2017-18, but among those who responded to a Star-Advertiser survey, Nevada, Boise State, San Diego State and Utah State all said they retain or raise their figures and offer upwards of $3,000 per athlete.

UH competes in the 12-member MWC in football. Most of its other teams compete in the Big West, which does not offer football and where UH is expected to have one of the highest and most across-the-board COA programs.

COA is designed to help cover out-of-pocket expenses such as home travel, phone, clothes and other costs to more adequately address the actual burden of attending college that family resources might not be able to meet.

UH has said it views COA as “an issue of student-athlete welfare and collegiate athletics competitiveness.”

The NCAA, primarily at the urging of the more well-heeled Power Five conference schools, passed legislation in January 2015 that allowed Division I schools to begin offering COA effective Aug. 1, 2015.

Nevada, which did not offer COA stipends in the first year, has since raised its ticket prices to accommodate funding of $4,800 last year and for the coming year.