By Will Vandervort.

Anyone that has gone to college has gone with the hope that one day they will make a difference in this world.

Clemson’s Patrick Andrews is getting his opportunity, at least in the world of sports that is.

The Tigers’ right-hand pitcher pitcher will join two other ACC athletes next Friday in Washington, D.C. as student-athlete representatives from its member institutions that will hold voting power on proposed governance rule changes under the NCAA’s recently-adopted Division I autonomy process.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Andrews said. “I’m excited about the opportunity to feel that I can kind of give back to the student-athlete population. I’m still a student-athlete and I love being a student-athlete at Clemson. It is everything I could have dreamed of.

“I’m just excited to give back and hopefully better the experience for student athletes to come.”

Notre Dame senior track & field athlete Kaila Barber and Pitt football player Artie Rowell will join Andrews in representing the ACC as part of the NCAA’s mission. Each of the Power 5 Conferences will be bringing three student-athletes to the meetings.

“I expected it to be, really, a big learning process,” Andrews said. “We get to sit in on a lot of these discussions and get to learn about everything. Every time I talk to someone new, there is always somebody who brings up a new idea and a new thought on a lot of these topics whether it is another student-athlete or an administrator on this conversation.

“I’m just keeping an open mind and trying to represent the student-athlete population as well as I can.”

To do that Andrews, Barber and Rowell have been brought up to speed and educated on a lot of topics by the ACC. Topics such as the cost of attendance legislation, a scholarship protection piece, a concussion legislation piece and the loss of value insurance for student athletes legislation.

They all three attended the ACC Business Meeting, which coincided with the ACC Football Championship Game, last month.

“We got to sit in on all the autonomy discussions and kind of learn more about the process,” Andrews said. “My vote represents the student athletes, but being able to kind of sit in with a lot of the administrators, the FARs and the SWAs from all the other universities gives us a much better understanding and an opportunity to learn about what is going on.”

One piece of legislation Andrews is interested in and one in which he will be voting on is the cost of attendance. This topic has long been at the center of debate among the Power 5 Conference schools. Most want to give student-athletes a stipend to be included in or in addition to their scholarships.

According to an article on CBSSports.com, universities annually list a higher cost of attending college beyond an athletic scholarship. Each school’s figures vary and are based on miscellaneous expenses. The NCAA average difference between an athletic scholarship and the full cost of attendance is around $3,500.

“The idea behind it is to make sure a full scholarship is what it is attended to be and that it covers the full cost of attendance for a student-athlete attending that college. What gets dispersed and the way things will be as we move forward through the future, it is really hard to say,” Andrews said. “Things can come up that change one day at a time. I know right now, the piece that gets voted on this year will likely be, if it is passed, acted on, but there is a lot more change to come.

“It is a very dynamic process. This is the first time they have ever really done something like this so everybody is kind of learning as we go.”

So what does this mean to a student-athlete like Andrews, who only gets a partial scholarship to play baseball?

“There are actually a few proposals involved and how they are going to enact this change on those sports,” Andrews said. “A generality will likely be that your percentage of scholarship would be a greater number now, so your twenty-five percent will be twenty-five percent of a greater number.

“That is a very general overview about it. There are some administrative details that are being worked out through the whole process and that will likely be discussed and voted on in Washington, D.C.”

Andrews says he understands that every student-athlete cannot be put on a full scholarship because it puts too much financial pressure on a university.

“The breakdown? It is always changing,” he said. “Like a lot of this autonomy stuff, what we currently have right now with baseball is 27 athletes allowed on scholarship and a minimum of 25 percent. Ten years from now there is nothing saying what that breakdown might be.

“Right now, that is the current situation that we have. It could go up, it could go down. Things could change drastically so we just kind of know where we stand and that is the playing field we are on. Every team we play has those same requirements so it is a fair playing field.”

Recently, the University of Texas said it was going to pay its student-athletes $10,000 a year to help with the cost of attendance. Andrews says that doesn’t mean the Longhorns’ athletes are going to get an extra $10,000 to cover the cost of attendance gap.

“They are including the Pell Grant and the off-campus living stipend,” he said. “The gap term is where the cost of attendance comes really into play. For Clemson, I believe it is $1,800 right now per student-athlete.

“The gap is the difference between what the new full scholarship will be and what a current full scholarship is. It is basically increasing a 100 percent scholarship by $1,800. If the University of Texas’ gap-term is $10,000 then that is what is deemed fair by their financial aid institution. That is what those student athletes deserve. Whatever each financial aid institution at that university comes up with that seems like the way it should be handled.”