OUA student-athletes receive nearly $9.2M in athletic financial awards in 2021-22
Burlington, Ont. – Ontario University Athletics (OUA) is pleased to announce, in a review of the 2021-22 Athletic Financial Awards (AFA) directly provided by the 20 member schools and three playing privilege schools, that a total of $9.2 million was received by 3,200 student-athletes across the conference.
Compared to the previous year, there was a four percent growth in the total dollars allocated and an eight percent jump in the number of student-athletes who received an AFA. OUA student-athletes, in addition to the AFAs awarded, are also eligible to receive academic scholarships, financial aid bursaries, and work study support from their universities.
As part of these noteworthy totals within the first full year back from the COVID-19 pandemic, 46.4% of the dollar figure was awarded to women student-athletes, while over half of the student-athletes who received an AFA were women.
“Not only are these numbers significant within the conference, but across the country, as the OUA remains the lone conference in Canada with a gender equity management subsection included in our overall AFA policy,” said OUA President & CEO Gord Grace.
The aforementioned section states that “OUA Members must allocate a minimum of 45% of their Athletic Financial Awards (by total dollar amount) to women student-athletes”.
Continued Grace, “Moving forward, we are hopeful that the national standard being set through the demonstrated commitments from our members will spark similar efforts across the rest of the country.”
In addition to the AFAs distributed, the 2021-22 season marked the first year of the Black or Indigenous Heritage Student-Athlete (BIHS) bursary pilot. A total of 109 bursaries totalling nearly $190,000 were awarded to student-athletes who identify as Black or Indigenous and demonstrated financial need. With the BIHS initiative’s pilot having wrapped up with the 2022-23 allocation this past year, the OUA is pleased to announce the program will continue into 2023-24 and 2024-25 as well.
Building even further on these collective contributions and overall successes, finally, there will also be a greater financial commitment from OUA members moving forward, with an increase from $4,500 to $5,000 in the AFA amount a student-athlete is eligible to receive going into effect for the 2023-24 season.
