The NCAA News - News and Features

May 18, 1998

Financial aid hearing reveals complexity of issue

BY KAY HAWES
STAFF WRITER

CHICAGO -- Representatives from several NCAA member institutions and other interested parties made their opinions heard at a hearing on financial aid conducted May 11 by the Division I Financial Aid Committee.

About 40 attendees heard testimony regarding several possible resolutions to address difficulties that Association financial aid limitations may pose for institutions as they seek compliance with Title IX. Additional written testimony was submitted to the committee.

The purpose of the hearing was to get feedback from affected parties. Committee chair Charlotte West, associate athletics director and senior woman administrator at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, said the hearing was enlightening.

"I think it reinforced for me how complex the issue is," she said. "I think it's going to be difficult to get consensus on some of our recommendations. I wish more people could have been here to hear about the genesis of the problem because I think many of our members are not aware how difficult it is for some of our institutions now and how difficult it's going to be in the future.

"I would challenge (institutions) to look ahead for solutions as they see their participation numbers in athletics mirroring their student body numbers. It's only going to get more difficult."

Elsa Kircher Cole, NCAA general counsel, provided the group with background on how the issue developed and became a matter of concern for the Association.

The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education has expressed concern that institutions offering a full complement of scholarships in women's sports still may violate Title IX financial aid requirements.

One of the issues is that, as institutions get closer to participation equity, they have more difficulties in financial aid equity, partly because of the distinctions between head count and equivalency sports.

Many of the suggestions proposed by the financial aid committee involve modifying maximum institutional grants-in-aid limitations, including the idea of increasing financial aid awards for certain women's sports such as rowing and field hockey.

Another suggestion involved changes to Division I-A football, placing an annual limit of 75 on the value of financial aid awards (equivalencies) to counters while placing an annual limit of 85 in the total number of counters. (See the April 20 issue of The NCAA News for a detailed description of all the options being considered by the committee.)

Solutions create new problems

R. Elaine Dreidame, a member of the financial aid committee and senior associate athletics director at the University of Dayton, explained to the group how the proposals currently under consideration had been developed, and she articulated the challenges the committee saw in trying to address the issue.

"We discovered that when you fix one problem, you create another problem," Dreidame said. "As a committee, we looked at a number of things, both from the point of view of schools that offer full-scholarship football and those that don't."

Those who provided oral testimony included David Charlow, director of student financial planning at Columbia University, who spoke on behalf of the Ivy League. He said that the NCAA should retain the current grants-in-aid limits in women's sports.

"Higher grant limits automatically will make it more expensive to begin a new team or to improve a current one because all schools will feel pressure to award the maximum number of grants, whether or not they feel it is necessary to do so," he said.

Sam Bell, men's track and field coach at Indiana University, Bloomington, and president of the U.S. Track Coaches Association, questioned the process by which the committee arrived at its recommendations. He also expressed concern that increases to maximum limits in women's rowing were being considered (to 30, up from 20) while increases to track and field limits were not.

"When you look at the scholarship limits, there is no logic for how these numbers are arrived at. Absolutely none," Bell said. "The committee needs to look at how many high-school athletes are participating and the differential of how many starting positions are available vs. how many scholarships are allowed."

Rich Cardillo, associate director of athletics-student services at the University of Colorado, Boulder, addressed the committee's doubts that NCAA legislation is truly preventing Title IX compliance. Cardillo said that while Colorado complies with Title IX participation requirements, the university is limited in complying with financial aid requirements by Bylaw 15.5.

"Our nine women's programs are limited by Bylaw 15.5 to the equivalent of 78 grants-in-aid awards, whereas our eight men's programs under the same bylaw can receive the equivalent of 125.9 grant-in-aid awards," Cardillo said.

"The bottom line is we need help in increasing the current limits on grants-in-aid. Increasing all women's programs by 20 percent will assist us and other institutions in arriving at a fully representative athletics program that meets the spirit and the letter of Title IX, which is increased opportunity. It would also be more cost-effective in that it would only be necessary in our case to add two, rather than three, programs and to provide the structured support for such programs."

Geographic constraints

Josephine R. Potuto, faculty athletics representative from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, said that Nebraska's efforts to add more women on scholarship were thwarted by NCAA limits. "It is deplorable that a school that is willing to spend the money is restrained or constrained by NCAA rules that limit grants-in-aid," she said.

Potuto stated that Nebraska wants to add women's sports rather than eliminate men's sports to meet gender-equity requirements. To achieve that outcome, the university retains an outside consultant to see what sports high-school girls in Nebraska and in the states contiguous to Nebraska are interested in playing.

Nebraska already competes in all women's sports that are viable in its geographic region, Potuto said, yet it still has a greater proportion of male student-athletes compared to men's representation in the student body.

"Were we to expand in all the areas in which women compete -- even considering that alpine skiing is a stretch and crew is a stretch as well, considering how early the Platte River freezes -- we still wouldn't meet the gender-equity requirements," Potuto said. She also noted that competing in sports that are offered primarily on the East Coast (for example, field hockey or lacrosse) would present a problem for student-athletes who would be burdened by excessive travel.

Christine Grant, women's athletics director at the University of Iowa, described the difficulties faced by an institution with a high enrollment of female students. "We're 54 percent female, a figure that has gone up almost four percentage points in five years. I've done so many analyses that I'm tired of doing them," she said.

"We already offer 12 sports for women and 10 sports for men. Were we to pass everything the committee has recommended, we could get it up to 51 percent for women. Without these increases, we are looking to add two or even three more sports. And you're talking about a minimum of $350,000 to add a women's sport in Division I-A."

Football discussion

Grant also addressed the topic that had remained untouched throughout the discussion. "It's pretty well established that we do not have the finances to keep expanding women's sports. And yet, we cannot even debate the possibilities of reducing football?" she asked.

Potuto indicated that Nebraska opposes any reductions in football grants-in-aid. Dreidame indicated that several members of the financial aid committee thought that the 75/85 concept, coupled with requiring student-athletes to file financial aid forms and obtain increased aid in that manner, was reasonable.

"I think (our proposal) is a rational approach," West said. "It really wouldn't be much of a cut, but it would do some things from the OCR's point of view. I personally don't think it would be a detriment to the sport."

Those who provided written testimony included: Deborah L. Brake, senior counsel, National Women's Law Center, who filed testimony on behalf of the Women's Sport Foundation; Mikki Baile, senior associate athletics director, Old Dominion University; Roselyn Cutler, Title IX coordinator/conciliation officer, Colorado State University; John D. Welty, president of California State University, Fresno; Kelly Woodward, associate director of athletics, Northern Arizona University; Tony Dziepak, department of economics, Virginia Tech; Richard M. Freeland, president, Northeastern University; Sam Baker, athletics director, Georgia Southern University; Joan R. Leitzel, president, University of New Hampshire; Alfred B. White, commissioner, the Southern Conference; Joe B. Wyatt, chancellor, Vanderbilt University; and Patty Viverito, chair, NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics.

Written testimony

In addition to the points raised by those giving oral testimony, the written testimony contained concerns about reducing grants-in-aid in football as well as concerns by representatives at institutions that do not offer football. Representatives from those institutions expressed concern that their participation rates will be unable to reflect their proportion of males in their student enrollment or, if the institution chose to keep scholarships the same for men and women, that their women's teams would be at a competitive disadvantage.

The Financial Aid Committee met briefly after the hearing, and it will meet again May 26 to decide on formal recommendations that will be forwarded to the Division I Academics/Eligibility/Compliance Cabinet. West encouraged any interested parties who have not yet commented to contact members of the committee.