Gender-Responsive Budgeting in Higher Education: An Examination of Collegiate Athletics Student Aid

Literature in public administration and public budgeting examines how budgetary processes affect the allocation of public resources across different populations. Using a gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) framework, this study examines patterns of athletic scholarship funding in the context of Title IX mandates in federally funded higher education institutions. Drawing on Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data from 2010 to 2022, the analysis focuses on scholarship allocations across National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I institutions. Distinct from much of the existing GRB literature, the study incorporates legal guidelines, panel data methods, and explicit distinctions by biological sex. Fixed-effects regressions indicate that total athletic student aid is positively associated with the scale of male student athletic participation, particularly in public institutions. Participation-adjusted analyses further show that both public and private institutions allocate athletic student aid to female student-athletes at levels broadly consistent with Title IX’s proportionality standards after accounting for enrollment composition. Specifically, private institutions exhibit stronger per capita adjustments favoring female student-athletes, pointing to meaningful heterogeneity in how funding allocations are implemented across institutional contexts. Overall, the findings demonstrate how a GRB-informed approach aids in interpreting aggregate funding patterns and highlight variation in institutional responses to mandates and policies pertinent to gender issues in collegiate athletics.