Basketball is the winter sport with the highest profile and the largest number of available athletic scholarships. Division I women's teams have two more scholarships to offer, with 15 per school, than men's teams, which are allowed 13 per squad. As of 2009, 329 schools participate in Division I men's basketball and 328 schools offer women's grants.
Division II men's and women's programs can have up to 10 scholarship players enrolled at any time, and there are 290 men's and 291 women's Division II basketball schools.
The rest of the more than 1,000 total NCAA colleges play in Division III where athletic scholarships are not available.
NAIA programs are available with 247 men's and 253 women's teams at which scholarships are also offered. Junior college programs are allowed to give scholarships to as many as 16 players.
The opportunities for ice hockey scholarships are isolated to the eastern part of the United States. Men's Division I ice hockey features 59 schools that are each able to offer up to 18 grants at a time. Just seven Division II schools have available scholarships, at the rate of 13.5 per team.
Thirty-four women's teams have Division I scholarships to offer, while just two Division II colleges offer women's ice hockey scholarships. Each team can hand out 18 women's hockey scholarships in both NCAA divisions.
A total of 10 junior colleges can each hand out 16 men's hockey scholarships.
As of 2009, wrestling scholarships were available only for the men's wrestling teams. Of the 225 NCAA colleges that have wrestling programs, 87 compete at the Division I level, where each team is allowed to offer the equivalent of 9.9 scholarships. They can spread the money out to as many athletes as they want by awarding partial grants.
Division II schools are allowed to award nine wrestling scholarship equivalents. There were 45 Division II programs as of 2009.
The NAIA has 29 scholarship wrestling programs, all of which can hand out the equivalent of eight scholarships.
Forty-two junior college wrestling programs have 16 scholarships each that they can pass out.
Skiing is not a scholarship sport at junior colleges or NAIA schools, and there are few scholarships to go around. Skiers who want to use their talent on the slopes to finance a college education have 20 NCAA schools available to them. Thirteen Division I and seven Division II colleges can give the equivalent of 6.3 scholarships in men's skiing, while 14 Division I and eight Division II schools are options for women's skiing scholarships. The NCAA allows Division I schools to award seven women's skiing scholarships and Division II schools to give out the equivalent of 6.3.