Hundreds of Scholarships Available for Track and Field Students

At the championship collegiate sports level Track and Field sports are divided into 3 separate scholarship sports:

  • Indoor Track
  • Outdoor Track
  • Cross Country

Each of these is sponsored through the NCAA, NAIA, and the NJCAA. Divisions I and II in any of the athletic associations are ripe for scholarship money.

NCAA Track Scholarships

You can bet the Men’s and Women’s Div I NCAA scholarships for Indoor/Outdoor Track and Cross Country are reserved for the elite athletes in the country. However there are a lot of scholarships to go around:

Between Cross Country and Track and Field, both indoor and outdoor, men and women have the opportunity to run, jump, throw, and vault on hundreds of college and university campuses across the U.S. And that’s just the NCAA.

Scholarships are awarded only to Divs I and II. How the maximum number of scholarships are divided is up to the discretion of the team coaches. None of these are headcount sports so they may be split into many partial scholarships.

Scholarships for Track and Field from NAIA and the NJCAA

Combine the schools that offer XC and Track and Field for the NAIA and the NJCAA and you have another few hundred opportunities to compete for some scholarship money. At the NJCAA level, aka JUCO, the impulse is often to dismiss this level of competition. Truth be told the NJCAA schools, particularly D-I, are jammed with top caliber athletes, some of them elite and on their own career and educational pathways. If you’re interested in JUCO competition, be prepared to put yourself out there to coaches midway through your high school career. Many don’t have the budgets or the time to come handpicking students from across the country or even the immediate region.

Scholarships at the NAIA and the NJCAA can also be divided into partial awards or kept whole. Don’t dismiss the option for walk-on tryouts either.

Alternative Scholarship Options for XC and Track Student Athletes

Consider checking into these popular sources as potential gold mines for scholarship money:

  • Local and regional runners clubs
  • Local and regional triathlon clubs
  • Local athletic outfitters