Over the past decade, university presidents and chancellors, along with the NCAA, have devoted considerable thought and action to the problematic issues surrounding men's basketball. We have sought ways to move student-athletes to work toward timely graduation, and to encourage them to remain on their college teams for their full range of eligible years of play. One of the most important steps we have taken in this regard has been the implementation of the so-called "five/eight rule," which I and my fellow Big Ten presidents support.

In the late 1990s, the NCAA realized the need for a cohesive strategy to constructively address the systemic problems manifested in men's basketball, including the increasingly commercial environment surrounding recruitment, low graduation rates, high transfer rates and early departures to the NBA. As a consequence, in August 1998, the NCAA formed the Division I Working Group to Study Basketball Issues. This group had a mandate to examine any and all issues that have a significant impact on Division I men's basketball.

A key strategy that emerged was the targeting of structural changes in the recruitment of men's basketball players -- from enhancing the environment of summer basketball recruiting to improving the accountability of institutions regarding basketball players. As a result, the NCAA adopted legislation (effective in 2001) that placed an annual limit on the number of new players who could be awarded initial athletics grants within the overall 13 grants already permitted. This concept of the "initial counter," already operational in football, was intended to address the high rates of attrition of male basketball student-athletes, which was a significant contributing factor to the low graduation rates for this sport. The five/eight rule was created to address these issues.

What is the five/eight rule? It is a reasonable annual and biannual limitation on the ability of a men's basketball program to award its 13 grants-in-aid. In one sense, it is a human-resource cap. It establishes a reasonable limit of allowable initial grants, reducing the replacement options for programs that are less successful in retaining men's basketball student-athletes because of transfer trends, academic failures and early professional departures. Hypothetically, without this rule, if all of a team's players transferred because of a head-coaching change, departed for the NBA or became academically ineligible, a coach could introduce 13 new players into the program every year.

Additionally, if attrition of this nature recurred in consecutive years, all departing players could be immediately replaced. While unlikely, these scenarios demonstrate the possibility of flux within the sport before the implementation of the five-eight rule. In short, no disincentive existed for programs in which attrition levels were extremely high on an annual basis.

The reality continues to be that men's basketball still registers the lowest graduation rates and highest transfer activity of any intercollegiate sport. In the 1991-96 period, student-athletes in men's basketball transferred at about 170 percent the rate of regular student-athletes -- almost 40 percent of all Division I men's basketball players are transfers. Since 1996, an increasing number of undergraduates have declared early for the NBA draft. This trend -- small but growing -- adds to the appearance of transience among male basketball student-athletes. The Big Ten presidents also believe these high transfer rates reinforce the view of the public regarding the function of Division I basketball programs as some sort of "minor league" of the NBA.

The five/eight rule was enacted to encourage coaches to evaluate the probability of retention associated with the recruitment of each student-athlete. Before the creation of the five/eight rule, a coach with a program with a high rate of transfers because of academic failure, NBA departures or other factors could introduce 25, 30 or more different grant-in-aid players into a program over a five-year period. In those instances, no NCAA or system-wide response was possible. The five/eight rule still allows the introduction of a maximum of 21 different players in any five-year period, unless an institution successfully appeals through the NCAA waiver process, or earns bonus grants through successful graduation outcomes.

The five/eight rule is intended to reward the coach and programs that actively recruit, retain, and support players because of prudent risk-taking in the recruitment process. As intended, this rule has a negative impact on programs that do not effectively recruit and retain student-athletes, creating programs that might have unfairly benefited from a competitive standpoint.

Now, more than two years after the implementation of the five/eight rule, the Division I membership will have an opportunity to decide whether to retain it. The Big Ten presidents urge caution and careful consideration as we enter this debate. If we no longer care about extremely high rates of attrition or if we are not concerned that 44 of the 65 teams playing in the 2004 men's tournament graduated fewer than 50 percent of their players, then the rule should be deregulated.

If we want to attack the problem of poor academic success in men's basketball, we should reward those coaches who identify, recruit, retain and develop successful student-athletes. Only then will we observe improvement in the graduation of young men who participate in basketball. For the good of the sport and our institutions, my Big Ten colleagues and I urge the retention of the five/eight rule.

Mary Sue Coleman is president of the University of Michigan.