Track financial aid

Includes Half Marathon and Cross Country

Track and field athletics in the USA can be traced back to the 1860s. The Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America, the country's first national athletic association, held their 1st intercollegiate meet in 1873, and in 1888 the Amateur Athletic Union (which governed the sport for almost one hundred years) held its first championships.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association allows each Div. I college track and field program 18 scholarships for women and 12.69 scholarships for men. In Div. II the ratio is 12.6 for men and 12.6 for women.

Track and Field is classed as a equivalency sport which means that coaches can "share" their allocation between a larger number of athletes.

There are 271 Div. I and 148 Div. II colleges that offer track scholarships for men. A total of 5,303.7 scholarships in the NCAA alone. For women the total number in the NCAA is 8,510.

There are 252 Div. I and 101 Div. II colleges that offer Indoor track and field scholarships for men. For women there are 290 Div. I and 108 Div. II schools that offer Indoor track and field scholarships.

Track and Cross country are considered one sport by many colleges so coaches tend to give out more distance scholarships than field and sprints. They get more for their money - 3 sports. A typical mix might be 4 field & sprints and 8 distance.

The NAIA has over three hundred member colleges. Athletics is an important part of sport at NAIA colleges and over ninety percent of these schools offer athletic scholarships.  The number of scholarships available is based on each individual school and generally is less than what is offered in the NCAA.