BYU top 10 among Power 5 schools with $4,500 Cost of Attendance stipend

BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe has repeatedly said the school would compete with Power 5 schools in the game of Cost of Attendance (COA) stipends, an NCAA-approved measure allowing schools to add to a student-athletes traditional scholarship by capturing more fully the costs of living at the school beyond tuition and a dorm.

Sunday, we learned via the Salt Lake Tribune that BYU is prepared to shell out $4,500 per scholarship in COA stipends, which ranks 10th nationally among known figures in Power 5 conferences, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. This is expected to apply to all athletic scholarships across all sports.

Some BYU athletes took notice, like incoming freshman cornerback Dayan Lake:

#MoneyTeam✊ https://t.co/V1IJ8YQtXX

— Dayan Lake (@still_flexin6) May 4, 2015

Utah State is said to be preparing $3,700 for COA payments, no doubt fueled by the taxpayer-funded allotment of $1.5 million recently awarded to the school based on the spurious claim Logan's economy is drastically affected by the success of the university's athletics.

Utah is slated for $3,574, according to the Chronicle, when payouts begin on Aug. 1.

There seems to be some wiggle room as to what schools can include in their COA calculations, which the federal government has required schools to calculate and report. The figures are made by considering cost of living in the area, distance from an airport and cost to travel home for an emergency, and various tuition, transportation, and phone bills, among other things.

But many private Power 5 schools don't rank highly, according to the Chronicle. Notre Dame clocks in at $1,950 COA addition per scholarship, USC at $1,580, and Boston College at $1,400. So BYU fares quite well among private schools.

It's good to see BYU stepping up to offer its student-athletes some reprieve from a life that requires good performance in the classroom and many hours on the practice field, which often squeezes out any time to earn money through a job. BYU athletes will soon be receiving an additional $500 per month (the payouts are based on a nine-month academic calendar).

Will it affect recruiting? We'll have to let that play out. Athletes are beginning to ask schools about their COA stipends, according to the Tribune, and it figures it's only a matter of time before recruits begin commenting publicly about the payments when interviewing about their decisions. According to the Tribune, BYU baseball landed All-American Kyle Dean based on its "heftier" COA stipend, so the Cougars are at least positioning themselves well in this regard.

Here are the top 15 schools in COA stipends, according to the Chronicle: