Sports scholarship at US university

[IslaMD]

My son applied through SRUSA to attend an American uni with a football scholarship. We were told the fees would be circa £5k pa (2 year masters) but the universities that contacted him were asking £14k + pa. We paid a fee of £1k to SRUSA on the basis that if our son didn't get an offer, this would be refunded. Now we can't get a response from them. Has anyone had a similar experience with a sport recruitment agency?

sounds very dubious. College recruiting, esp. for a sport like football is a whole big thing... and the idea that you pay some (relatively small amount of) money to some business and a football scholarship appears doesn’t make any sense. Consult collegeconfidential forum.

You won’t get any education in the USA for £5000 pa. He’s had offers so I guess the SRUSA did what they said they would do. Why didn’t you check the cost of a USA college education yourself first?

Thanks UKsounding, we'll give this a try.

"You won’t get any education in the USA for £5000 pa"

Not true, certainly not at Post Graduate level. US Universities can be very generous, but usually demand payback in terms of sports representation, teaching etc. (DS has full funding essentially for a two years Masters and then a four year PhD, but will have to teach or work as a research assistant.) Many Universities expect to make their real money from UGs.

That said, many of the kids we knew who went to the US on sports scholarships, and this was quite a number, got in via UK coach connections, or direct negotiations with University coaches. (Mums were forever videoing hockey etc in order to capture their children's best moments.) There seemed to be a three way trade off: how good an athlete you were; how academically capable you were; and the status of the college. This seemed to determine how much you paid. So for the really prodigious colleges sport would get you in, but you still paid a lot.

FWIW £14k sounds cheap for the US. Education there can be eye wateringly expensive. Does it include accomodation? The pound is weak so living in the US is pricey.