11 hours ago, GrantNKY said:

There’s no money to be repaid. Scholarships and tuition are all arbitrary and even more so at a private school like Duke. Duke is providing a service to all of their students by giving them an education. As with all services they can charge whatever they want. They can provide the service at no charge or they can charge you for it. It’s not like Duke wrote him an actual check for him to subsequently pay his tuition with. It doesn’t work that way. If I owned a barber shop and cut your hair for free, I can’t call you a week later and ask you to pay me. 

Thanks for briefing, looks like I've been living under a rock all these years.

On 2/17/2021 at 12:33 AM, GrantNKY said:

There’s no money to be repaid. Scholarships and tuition are all arbitrary and even more so at a private school like Duke. Duke is providing a service to all of their students by giving them an education. As with all services they can charge whatever they want. They can provide the service at no charge or they can charge you for it. It’s not like Duke wrote him an actual check for him to subsequently pay his tuition with. It doesn’t work that way. If I owned a barber shop and cut your hair for free, I can’t call you a week later and ask you to pay me. 

I think you're splitting hairs.   There's still a trade being performed, with services rendered (playing for the team) being traded in exchange for something of monetary value (free/discounted education).   

Whether the school issues a check, provides a discount, or simply doesn't charge the student is really irrelevant, legally.

Both of my sons were scholarship athletes in college.    Neither actually received a check, but their bills all reflected a big discount that was identified on the statement as their scholarship.   That discount was contingent on my sons rendering services (participating on athletic teams).

I negotiate legal contracts for a living.   This is a legal agreement between two parties; student-athletes who bail out in mid-season are not upholding their end of the agreement.  This is breach of contract - I would have no problem with universities demanding some repayment - and I will be stunned if that doesn't start to happen, with all the athletes opting out of bowl games and the like.    

Whether they are successful in recouping those funds would be interesting.