I feel very misled by my school/coaches. I really have no idea what to do at this point and was wondering about these questions: Do I have a valid case for a lawsuit based on detrimental reliance? If I did have a case, would a lawsuit be worth it? If I maintain good academic standing, what times in the 800/1500 would I need to receive significant money from other D-2s/lower level D-1s? What times would allow a boost in admission to better academic schools?
This is very long and convoluted so here is the TLDR:
I was verbally offered a full-ride scholarship from a fully funded D-2. Then they changed the amount to cost 4k direct. Now I have to pay 12k direct with my athletic offer only totaling a little over 2/5th tuition.
Here is the long, drawn-out explanation:
Due to an injury, I missed my entire junior track season and struggled in my senior year of cross country. Because of this, I received very little recruiting attention. However, this indoor season, I stayed healthy and had a big breakout on relatively low mileage (30 mpw) and ran 4:19 for the 1600m. I should also note that while I am not a top student, I am decent academically, with a 3.65/4.00 GPA and a 1350 SAT. With these athletic and academic stats, I received much attention from D-2s and lower-level D-1s.
One school I reached out to took a lot of interest in me and verbally offered me a full ride in one of our first exchanges. The school was worse academically than I'd like (40% grad rate) and was good but not great in xc/tf (above average xc regionals, no national qualifiers indoor/outdoor). Before accepting anything, I went to the school and met with the coach. In talking to the coach, he laid out the teams scholarship funding and a cost with academic+athletic aid of about 4k direct. He seemingly forgot about the full ride he mentioned days earlier; regardless, I saw 4k as a reasonable amount to pay and was ready to commit. Before I committed, I double-checked the school's net price calculator and saw that the 4k figure he laid out was accurate. The coach also sent me a written but unoffical offer totaling 4k.
Once this was confirmed, I stopped talking to other coaches and waited for my NLI to make my commitment official. A few weeks later, I received my NLI and decided to double-check the cost on the net price calculator one more time. In doing so, I saw that my direct cost increased by 4k due to a reduction in my academic scholarship from 7k to 3k. Upon seeing this, I reached out to my coaches and financial aid. Both said I would receive the initial 7k scholarship amount. Trusting that my coaches and financial aid were correct and that the school's website had glitched, I signed the NLI. About a week later, I had a second breakout running 4:12 in the 1600m and received my financial aid offer shortly after.
The cost of the financial aid offer was 300% what the school website/coaches presented me with. After untangling a very convoluted web, I could reason why this was. Essentially, out-of-state but on the East Coast tuition is 10k. However, you do not receive the 7k OUT-OF-STATE scholarship unless you are out of state AND NOT FROM THE EAST COAST (nowhere is this stated on the school's website). Also food/housing was 2k more than what was listed. I should also note the obvious that calculator figures were way off before at 4k and are still off at 7k. I have no idea how they messed up so badly as the price/scholarship figures are wildly off and seemingly unrelated to the actual figures.
After seeing the discrepancy and figuring out why this was, I reached out to the coaches and financial aid again. Somehow, the coaches were just as surprised as me to learn that my cost had tripled, while the financial aid office just gave me a useless response about how the calculator was broken.
In the following days, my coaches tried to find extra money for me to offset the cost but ultimately couldn't do anything. They did say I could opt out of my NLI, but at this point in the college process, I have no other option but to stay with my current school.
I know this post is probably better fit for Reddit or somewhere more serious, but even a broken clock like LetsRun can be right twice a day. If anything here is confusing and not clear which I would expect, just ask and I can clarify.