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As the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s annual convention approaches, colleges are mounting substantial opposition to the scholarship reform measures that the Division I Board of Directors put in place this fall. Two weeks ago, the number of Division I colleges petitioning to overturn a rule that allowed for more substantial athletic scholarships reached a tipping point (125), immediately suspending the legislation and putting it up for potential elimination at the upcoming convention. Now, a rule allowing for multi-year scholarships faces a similar fate.
The latter rule seeks to eliminate the one-year limit on athletic scholarships, and the former would allow institutions to provide up to $2,000 per student in additional funds to help fill the gap between what full athletic scholarships now cover and the actual cost of attending college. The number of institutions requesting an override of the multi-year scholarship rule isn’t yet high enough to automatically suspend that legislation, but at least 75 have opposed it, qualifying it for reconsideration at the board’s Jan. 14 convention meeting. There, the board has three options to deal with both rules: eliminate them, do nothing and allow an override vote by all Division I members, or alter the proposals to address the concerns.
According to an NCAA statement, the colleges’ main complaints stemmed from desires to award athletic aid in the same way most academic aid is given out -- annually -- and worries over recruiting bidding wars and additional monitoring to make sure teams don’t over-promise aid. Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, has suggested that both rules can be modified to satisfy the colleges that want an override.
