Originally published in TrailblazeHERS in Sports, Issue 4 | June 30, 2026
Chiara Wesley
Nearly 50 years ago, Title IX promised equal opportunity in sports for both men and women, yet women are still faced with significant inequalities, especially when it comes to access to scholarships and resources. At a typical Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) school, women make up around 54 percent of the student body, yet they are only provided with 41 percent of athletic scholarship dollars. According to the National Women's Law Center, “women who play sports at the typical Division I-FBS (formerly Division I-A) school receive only about 18 percent of the total money spent on athletics and 29 percent of recruiting dollars.”
These numbers are not just on paper; they represent real barriers for women. Women are forced to walk away from the sports and schools they have always dreamed of, or walk on with a financial burden.
Olympic gold medalist Nancy Hogshead‑Makar, now CEO of Champion Women and a longtime Title IX advocate, stated “The truth is, people are really getting hurt: the 183,000 girls and women who don’t have college teams waiting for them or who don’t get a college scholarship because of discrimination. Women are a billion dollars behind men in college scholarships. A billion! Because they are women. No other reason.”
A major reason for this imbalance is how Division 1 football dominates athletic budgets and scholarships, due to the fact that it makes up such a big part of college culture. FBS school Football programs, according to Next College Student Athlete, are allowed to offer up to 85 full scholarships, a number that beats every sport. For example, the University of Alabama’s football program alone is allocated 85 full scholarships, eating up a large portion of the school's scholarship budget. Women are then faced with competition for financial aid, which leads to smaller scholarships that can’t meet the needs of the diverse variety of athletes.
A talented athlete may be relying on a high scholarship to continue playing the sport they have dedicated so much time, money and energy to, but when scholarships are limited and disproportionately awarded to men’s programs, many women are left with partial aid. This financial strain has shown real impacts, contributing to a troubling trend: nearly half of adolescent girls (49%) drop out of sports during their teenage years, a rate six times higher than that of boys, according to UNESCO.
In order to combat this, universities must take a large number of steps to ensure women receive fair access to scholarships and resources.
Image credit: Washington College