The NCAA will allow schools to grant an additional year of eligibility to spring-sport student-athletes.
The move was ratified by the Division I Council on Monday, with a related decision allowing schools to adjust financial-aid rules to allow programs to carry more athletes on scholarship to account for incoming recruits and student-athletes who had been in their last year of eligibility who decide to stay.
The Council also increased the roster limit in baseball, the only spring sport with such a limit.
“The Council’s decision gives individual schools the flexibility to make decisions at a campus level,” said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun, the athletics director at Penn. “The Board of Governors encouraged conferences and schools to take action in the best interest of student-athletes and their communities, and now schools have the opportunity to do that.”
One big downer in this for the student-athletes: the vote gives schools the flexibility to reduce financial-aid awards for returning seniors.
Winter sports were not included in the decision.
Story by Chris Graham
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