While I do not like the idea of athletic scholarships (I agree with Wayne that colleges and universities are academic institutions), I think that in the current climite of college sports, I would rather have some mechanism of athletic scholoarships. Why? Because then the tuition money that the student athlete receives is obvious for all to see. It has been my experience that colleges/universities that do not directly offer athletic scholarships, somehow manage to give their star athletes a very good finiancial aid package. I won't name colleges, but I don't think even Ivie league schools are above this (some at least, not necessarily all and not necessarily in respect to hockey). Part of this problem exists because some schools offer athletic scholarships while others don't. Some of the schools that don't offer athletic scholarships but still want to field good teams (and collect the revenues of these sports) will offer financial aid anyway. If no one can offer athletic scholarships, this could reduce this problem, but I'm not convinced that it will eliminate the problem (unless there is massive scholarship-policing). So, as long as schools will circumvent the lack of athletic scholarships with other financial aid packages, I would just as soon have athletic scholarships since it keeps everything in plain sight. Call an apple an apple and an orange an orange. Call financial aid which is given to an althete obviously due to his/her athletic skill an athletic scholarship. Derek Snyder GE CR&D Schenectady, NY [log in to unmask]