The Division I Committee on Academic Performance continued to develop the historically based penalty structure at its April 25-26 meeting in Indianapolis. Members forwarded a proposed model for the application of penalties to the Division I Board of Directors for comment.

The model will require teams with a multi-year Academic Progress Rate lower than 900 to be subject to a further review of several factors before they are subject to historically based penalties. The factors, which will be applied simultaneously, include examinations of institutional mission and team improvement, and a national comparison of the team with other teams within the same sport.

Depending on how a team fares in the review, it may escape historically based penalties or have the penalties mitigated.

Committee members considered “cut points” of 900 and 925 during their discussion. The 900 APR cut point is projected to identify roughly 4 to 6 percent of all teams. A score of 900 translates to about a 50 percent Graduation Success Rate, which is the new NCAA metric that differs from the federal graduation rate because it takes into account transfers to and from an institution.

Once a team has fallen below 900 in its multi-year APR, it will be subject to review of the three factors. Among the factors that will be analyzed will be a by-sport comparison. To receive a favorable outcome on the by-sport comparison, a team must rank among the top 90 percent of teams within that sport. According to research presented to the committee, the sport comparison will have the largest impact on men’s basketball, baseball and football, since more teams are projected to fall below 900 in those sports.

Institutional mission is another factor applied during the review of teams that fall below the 900 cut score. That examination will focus on the institution’s academic and financial resources.

The academic analysis will be the same used in the current contemporaneous-penalty structure in which the student-athlete and student-body populations at the institution are compared through projected graduation rates. An institution’s resource level can be determined by examining per capita education expenditures, per capita athletics department operating expenditures and the average Pell Grant among all students.

The final factor to be reviewed in teams falling below the 900 APR mark will be the team’s academic performance over time determined through an examination of (1) APR and GSR improvement, (2) reduction in the number of student-athletes who earn neither the retention nor the eligibility points in the APR (“0-for-2s”), (3) an institution’s implementation of required improvement plans and (4) other statistical measures not yet determined.

Once the review of improvement, institutional mission and the by-sport comparison is complete, some teams would be eliminated from the historically based penalty pool because of favorable results in all three factors.

Teams that have favorable results in one or two factors may still be subject to historically based penalties, but they may be mitigated based on the analysis. Teams that do not perform well in any of the comparisons will be subject to the most severe historically based penalties in that penalty stage.

The CAP noted that the goal of historically based penalties is to penalize the so-called “worst of the worst,” and they acknowledged that the term can be defined differently. But CAP members believe that capturing 4 to 6 percent of teams for further review is an appropriate starting point in determining historically based penalties.

In other business, the committee also began to work on a revised incentives model. Discussions centered on two possible programs: one that would reward APR improvement and another that would provide assistance for institutions that lack financial resources and have low academic performance through the APR. Funding for the two programs has not yet been identified. Corporate support remains an option.

The committee believes the goal of any incentives program is to change behavior, so incentives should be directed to teams that show improvement

“It must be about improvement, not absolute performance. We can recognize absolute performance, but we should use financial incentives for improvement,” NCAA President Myles Brand told the group. “We want to bring up the bottom.”

Outlining a specific set of parameters for how improvement will be measured is difficult with only two years of data available.

The program designed to assist low-resource institutions was described as a grant program that could require a matching element from recipients. Funds could be used in a variety of ways to improve academic performance.

The committee will discuss the incentives plan further at its next meeting in July.

Other highlights

Division I Committee on Academic Performance

April 25-26/Indianapolis

• Declined to change its APR policies regarding graduates with remaining eligibility. The Division I Management Council had suggested that CAP remove postgraduate student-athletes who do not earn their eligibility points from the APR cohort but allow the postgraduate student-athletes who do earn that point to remain. Postgraduate student-athletes always earn their retention point. The Board of Directors tabled the matter at its April 27 meeting (see story, page 10).
• Forwarded the historically based penalty appeals policies and procedures to the Board of Directors. The original draft was circulated among the membership and updates were made, including a request by the Board that appeals of historically based penalties that appear before them clearly define abuse of discretion in applying legislation or policies.
• Heard plans for an APP data-review program that will function as an audit of institutional APP data submissions. Pilot reviews are underway.