D III Audits

[D3_DPUFan]

I am a newby, so don't hold it against me. Does the NCAA conduct audits relative to the amount of student aid that football players receive in comparison to the student body in general? If so, are they random or how often do they occur?
Thanks!

[Mr. Ypsi]

Yes.  Athletes must be within +/- 4% (I believe that is the number) of aid given to students in general.  I believe this is done by annual reports by the colleges; someone better informed than I will have to fill in the auditing details.

[D3_DPUFan]

Thanks for the feedback...how aggresive is the NCAA on this?

[Ralph Turner]

The NCAA takes it very seriously, especially if the institution gives athletes more than the "4%".

[Mr. Ypsi]

Ralph (or anyone informed on this):

D3_DPUFan does imply some questions in my mind:

1. Are the aid reports broken down by sport?  (e.g., could an unscrupulous school get away with 'football' scholarships by screwing the cross country or soccer athletes?)  I'm guessing they do check sport-by-sport, but anyone know?

2. What auditing and/or legal penalties are attached to these reports?  (e.g., if a school DID misreport, how likely would they be to get caught?  Would false reports be subject to perjury (or similar) prosecution?)

I'm reasonably confident that d3 schools genuinely are non-athletic-scholarship, but how carefully IS that monitored?

[D3_DPUFan]

good questions ypsi...
especially the following:

2. What auditing and/or legal penalties are attached to these reports?  (e.g., if a school DID misreport, how likely would they be to get caught?  Would false reports be subject to perjury (or similar) prosecution?)

are there any examples of what happens if a school/program is found in violation?

[Pat Coleman]

This is a relatively new program. I don't believe there are penalties yet -- I think this is only the second year it's in play for all schools.

I look forward to seeing how this program grows.

[janesvilleflash]

Here's something, I have know idea how true it is, but interesting reading none the less.

http://www.sourcebookscollege.com/paying-for-college/how-can-i-find-an-athletic-scholarship.html

[old ends]

Good article, but it makes you wonder if any DIV III programs were called on "agressive aid packages".
Pat said that it is a new program and I hope they find no DIV III schools ever.

[Pat Coleman]

http://www.d3football.com/dailydose/2006/04/14/25-schools-aid-not-accepted/

There were some.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Very interesting, but also very frustrating.  The report is now 20 months old - any (public) word on what happened next with the 25 schools (or even who they were)?

(And, Pat, in light of an old complaint of yours, I WOULD do my own research, but on this I wouldn't even know where to begin!  I'm assuming that you or Ralph or Joe or someone would have a much better chance of finding something meaningful. )

[old ends]

After spending some time on the NCAA page found a few slap on the wrist, but nothing major and it did not even seem football related. Just go to NCAA.org click on new archive then put in a search. Link itself to long to type.

[Ralph Turner]

I am away from my resources, sitting at a coffee shop "borrowing" their internet.

I wish that I had the bar graph that Johnnie Esq posted on the "Future of D-III" board about January 2006 that showed the distribution of aid to athletes.

I wanted the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) to address those schools, and there were plenty, who statistically gave less aid than predicted to athletes.

The number of schools was within the statistically anticipated norms.  Out of 400 schools, how many would you expect to mis-calculate their distributions?  2 standard deviations of chance (2.5%) would be 10 schools!