The NCAA Division I Board of Directors is considering a new package of financial incentives to help improve the academic performance of student-athletes.
As part of ongoing academic reform measures designed to hold teams and schools accountable for retention and graduation rates of athletes, the board revealed Oct. 27 that it had reviewed the new financial incentives package. The NCAA's Committee on Academic Performance developed the initial package and will make final recommendations to the Board of Directors sometime in 2006.
The committee set the package at $10 million annually, divided into three areas. Tentatively, $5 million would go to awards for academic improvement, $3 million to support struggling institutions with grants and partnerships and $2 million for awarding absolute performance, such as overall team achievement and a public recognition program. Annual increases in the NCAA's television contract would fund the package.
The president and chancellors of the NCAA decided several years ago that they needed to have stronger academic standards, according to Erik Christianson, NCAA director of public and media relations.
"This is the first time we have taken this approach to provide tangible monetary awards for teams that are high-performing, have seen academic improvement, or for teams who don't have the resources," Christianson said.
The NCAA also put into place the Academic Progress Rate last year as a measure of academic performance. Christianson called the APR "a real-time snapshot of how a team is performing academically." In order to avoid losing scholarships or other penalties, teams need to score at least a 925 out of 1,000, which equates to a 50 percent graduation rate.
The financial incentives package is the last piece of a three-part program for academic reform. There are also temporary penalties that relate to the Academic Progress Rate, which will take effect in the current academic year.
Historical penalties that are "designed to really look at the chronically under-performing teams and hold them accountable" make up the third part of the program that Christianson said will "have real effect in terms of forcing teams to improve."
"Ultimately, it could lead to athletes not being able to compete at all," Christianson added.
Recently, the NCAA has taken steps toward holding student athletes accountable for their own academic achievement. Christianson said they have strengthened academic requirements for incoming athletes and set a program of core courses that athletes need to have completed in high school. In addition, Christianson said the NCAA wants to ensure that athletes continue to make progress toward getting a degree, so they require that athletes complete 20 percent of their degree requirements each year.
Christianson said the new incentives package will likely be approved at the board of directors meetings in January or April 2006, and would take effect in the 2007-2008 academic year. "We want to make sure that we have an adequate data set over time that begins to show clear patterns and are statistically developed," he added.
Though they have not yet determined exactly what factors to use, "the financial awards will take into account the differences between various institutions," Christianson said.
Joan Taylor, Brown's senior associate athletic director, said the package "doesn't effect (the University) at all" because of how high the graduation rate of Brown's student athletes is and because the University does not give athletic grants. There is "no advantage to us because we don't need to provide incentives for our student athletes to stay in school," she said.
But Carolyn Campbell-McGovern, senior associate director of the Ivy League Conference office, said, "So far we haven't been affected because there have only been disincentives, but now they are talking about actually giving financial rewards to institutions based on their performance, so that could affect Brown."
Michael Goldberger, Brown's director of athletics, said: "Brown has performed amongst the best of the country, so if it will provide benefits for schools that will do well, I assume there will be a benefit for us."
