Swimming is an equivalency sport, which means that coaches can divvy up the dollars allotted to them between as many athletes as they choose.

In 2014, there were 198 schools offering NCAA Division-I swimming programs for a total of 135 men's teams and 197 women's teams. Men's and women's teams each have about 28 members, but men's teams get the equivalent of 9.9 scholarships per team while women's teams get 14 scholarships per team member (source).

It's hard for any team to give out many full rides—that is, they pay for your room and board, your tuition, as well as a few trips home from Turkey. If you aren't already an Olympic medalist or a world record holder, then you might want to look into alternative options for funding your college career.

Division-II programs offer 8 full scholarships to both men's and women's teams. That number is 8 for NAIA programs and 15 at the junior college level. D-III programs do not offer athletic scholarships, but often provide other forms of financial aid (source).

If you're a seriously competitive high school swimmer with times that qualify for, at minimum, a junior national standard, then it's likely you can at least compete at a D-2 college. The bigger issue revolves around whether or not you will score points for your college at their championship meets. Look at the finals in your event from last year and ask yourself, "If I put on five pounds of muscle and learn to hold my breath until I'm blue in the face, can I take off a second per hundred and actually be a factor for my coach/team?"

Keep in mind that the 100-yard freestyle qualifying times for Division-I teams are:

• for boys, under about 42.5 seconds, and
• for girls, under about 48 seconds (source).

This cutoff changes as you move down the divisions, of course.