You're on target as far as food and housing. However, extras are not supplied, including out of pocket money. In fact, scholarship athletes are tightly restricted from having other employment, and many of them have essentially no other income. I don't fully understand the constraints, but it does get ridiculous in its lack of flexibility.
One NCAA bylaw, better known as the bagel rule, permits schools to offer bagels, fruits and nuts to athletes at any time. An interpretation, however, prohibited offering spreads such as cream cheese or peanut butter with the bagels. Bagels OK, add cream cheese and you have an instant NCAA rule violation!
Let's say Joe is from a near-poverty level income family (which is not unusual in some sports); the only reason he can attend college is the scholarship. He learns that his mom is dying of cancer. Not only can't the school buy him a ticket to get home before she dies, if a coach drives him to the airport for a red-eye flight home, he can't even buy him a burger before the flight.
How'd you like to be the NCAA rule enforcement official at a university and try to monitor all this minutiae???
Of course, all of these rules came about because of egregious acts by some schools. But the thing we keep missing in our society is that we can't enact rules to guard against everything. Some things need to be dealt with individually, and we don't need to create a rule to try and prevent every possible stupid or corrupt act.
