Cincinnati athletes get big benefit boost
The difference between what the University of Cincinnati could cover under an athletic scholarship and what it reported as the actual cost of attending the school used to be a problem for Bearcats coaches.
Now, it’s a problem for Bearcats athletics administrators.
According to data the school provided to the NCAA over five recent years, even as their tuition, room, board and books were be- ing paid for, Cincinnati’s athletes faced an average of nearly $5,000 a year in costs such as transportation and miscellaneous personal expenses — well above the amounts faced by athletes at other schools.
In the wake of an NCAA rules change that allows Division I schools to add incidental costs to their scholarships, beginning this academic year, Cincinnati is providing a group of its athletes amounts ranging from $5,504 to $7,018, depending on factors including their academic programs and whether they are living on
campus or off, senior associate athletics director Maggie McKinley said.
The high-end figure was the largest USA TODAY Sports found as it obtained information from athletics departments at more than 100 of the 128 Football Bowl Subdivision schools about their additional spending for cost-of-attendance-based scholarships and the unlimited meals and snacks for athletes allowed by an NCAA rules change in April 2014.
Altogether, Division I athletes are receiving nearly $160 million a year in new benefits because of the rules changes, according to an analysis by USA TODAY Sports.
At Cincinnati, “coaches used to have to offset (the school’s cost of attendance) in their recruiting — how expensive it seemed” to players’ families, McKinley said. “Now, it’s flipped.”
Under federal financial aid guidelines, schools have considerable leeway to set the cost-of-attendance budgets they then apply to all students.
“We’ve always known our number was higher” than those at other schools, McKinley said.
Kansas State President and NCAA board of governors chairman Kirk Schulz told USA TODAY Sports “there was a little bit of trust involved” in allowing increases to the benefits athletes could receive.
Using the introduction of unlimited meals and snacks as an example, he said schools had to ignore worries that, “If we let everybody do that, maybe somebody’s going to fly lobsters from Maine every evening for their football team.
“At some point, you’ve got to say, ‘ Look, if people are going to do that, they’re going to do that, and let’s not worry about it.’ ”
But worries are being raised. Within the broader higher-education community, there is concern about pressure being put on financial aid officers, whose decisions about schools’ cost-of-attendance figures can impact student debt levels. The increased spending on scholarships and food, atop all of the other rising expenses, is creating worry among coaches in so-called nonrevenue sports that their teams might be endangered.
Referencing conversations at the Division I Strategic Summit and board meetings two weeks ago in Indianapolis, Schulz said, “There is certainly some active discussion among some of the (school) presidents” about Division I membership requirements. At present, among other things, schools must have teams in 14 sports to be in Division I, 16 to be in the FBS.
“I think there needs to be some dialogue about what does it mean to be a Division I member,” Schulz said.
With many schools viewing continued access to the Division I men’s basketball tournament as critical, he added, “There may be some ways to say we’re still going to want to have people sponsor a certain number of sports at what we’re going to call a Division I level. They may be funded differently.” CASH FLOWING Athletes have talked about an array of possible uses for the incidentals money.
Last week, when South Carolina football players received their first monthly allocation of $400, freshman wide receiver Jalen Christian was asked what he planned to do with it. “I don’t know yet,” he said. “Save it up? I’m an Xbox guy, and there are new games coming out in October and November. But other than that I’m going to save it.”
Schools in the Power Five conferences — Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pacific-12 and Southeastern — and some other schools are covering the cost of attendance for athletes in all of their sports.
FBS schools not in the Power Five are working under a wide range of plans for their athletes. Most, though not all, have increased their spending on meals and snacks. With cost of attendance, some are fully covering a few teams and partially covering the remainder. Some are partially covering all teams. Others reported that they would not begin providing any cost-of-attendance assistance until the 2016-17 school year.
Non-FBS schools implement- ing cost-of-attendance plans primarily are focusing on men’s and women’s basketball. However, Liberty, which has a Football Championship Subdivision football team, and Wichita State are providing it in all sports. Virginia Commonwealth has started a two-year phase-in to do the same.
Atlantic 10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade said all of the schools in her conference, which includes VCU, had increased spending on meals and snacks. After having anxiety about the impact and the cost, she said, “We really have had no concerns raised about it at all.”
But on cost of attendance, which Atlantic 10 schools voted to mandate in men’s and women’s basketball beginning this year, McGlade said: “Institutions are going to really have to work hard to address where those dollars come from, and I think they’re going to have to look really hard at philanthropy, because it’s going to be a dangerous road if you just keep increasing the general student body athletic fee.”
Florida State evaluated its contractual obligations for 2015-16 — including football coach Jimbo Fisher’s new annual compensation of more than $5 million — and its estimates for cost of attendance and food and then implemented a 2% cut in expenses in all other areas. That’s allowing FSU to absorb $2 million in additional scholarship costs — $4,500 per full in-state scholarship and $6,000 per full out-of-state award — plus $400,000 for additional meals and snacks. The athletics department and its booster club are evaluating whether to increase the donations that would be required for various benefits, a program that hasn’t been adjusted since 2006.
“Anytime we make changes to NCAA legislation, that has a fi- nancial impact,” FSU athletics director Stan Wilcox said. “It’s always been somewhat challenging for schools to figure out.” TRANSPARENCY IN SEC SEC schools are additionally working through a set of reporting requirements designed to bring transparency to their cost-of-attendance calculations. At the NCAA convention in January, the SEC proposed that these rules apply to all NCAA schools, but it was voted down. In May, the conference’s schools adopted them anyway.
They begin from the principle that cost of attendance for all students is supposed to be based on budgets determined under federal guidelines by financial aid office staffers, who also have the authority to use what the U.S. Department of Education terms “professional judgment” to provide upward variances on a caseby-case basis.
By July 15 each year, SEC schools must provide the conference office with their cost-of-attendance figures and methodology, as well as certification from their campus CEO and senior financial aid officer that both have reviewed and approved the report.
Then, at the end of each term, they have to submit information to the SEC about each student who has been granted an individual increase in their cost-of-attendance budget based on professional judgment.
Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said, “(I’m) disappointed that has not been adopted among all the institutions. Transparency is integral to this going forward.”
Draeger said he didn’t have any evidence of an athletics department manipulating cost-of-attendance numbers or pressuring a financial aid office to do the same.
What he does have, he said, is an enormous amount of newly found interest in how schools come up with their cost of attendance.
“And it’s not just coming from the athletic department. It’s coming from the board or trustees or the president’s office in relation to how their cost of attendance compares to (those of ) other schools within their conference.
“So I think it’s too soon to tell whether pressure ultimately will be brought to bear.”