Hacker News Reader

Comment by alistairSH | Hacker News Reader

How do the military academies get around the "no direct payment" rule? AFAIK, all their students (athletes included) are salaried members of the armed services. For a Navy football players, it's literally part of their job description to go to practice and show up on Saturdays.

View on HN

I know for the Naval Academy, you don't get the salary. Even if you were previous enlisted you are no longer paid your salary, though I believe the 4 years in the academy count towards retirement.

That's not true.[1] After expenses, the "take-home" is minuscule, but they are still salaried members of the armed services.

1 - https://www.usna.edu/Admissions/Student-Life/General-Informa...

It is a stipend, and stipends are allowed by the NCAA. The handbook in your link calls it a stipend. Since there is a hard cap on how much cash you can actually take from your "pay", I would call it a stipend.

How is that different than a scholarship paying room/board/tuition for athletes?

Because in addition to room/board/tuition, those at military academies are also paid a salary. It's above and beyond cost of schooling, and goes directly to the students instead of to defray education costs. I think that's the "direct" part of "no direct pay".

You are not paid a salary while in a military academy, you are given a stipend from which they deduct food, board, and other costs.

jkeuhlen covered it.

Students at the military academies are both on full scholarship (tuition and board paid by the taxpayers) and salaried. After required [non-academic] expenses (uniforms, laundry, etc) the "take home" is tiny. But, that doesn't negate the fact that they are salaried employees of the US government.

And, just to be clear, I'm in no way arguing students at the service academies are over-paid, or shouldn't be paid, or anything like that. I'm just curious if they have an explicit exemption from the NCAA, or if the NCAA isn't following it's own rules.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com