Division III financial aid reporting now has completed its fourth year, and during this period, about one-quarter of the division’s membership has been required to justify financial aid packaging for student-athletes.

The program revealed violations of financial aid legislation – most deemed isolated or inadvertent – at about one out of every 10 of Division III’s approximately 420 institutions.

A four-year report summarizing the results of reviews from 2005-06 through 2008-09 was posted this week on the NCAA Web site.

All member schools must submit financial aid data annually through the Division III Financial Aid Reporting Program, and nearly one-third (137 institutions) of the membership has received at least a Level I review – triggered by statistical analysis of that data – by the Division III Financial Aid Committee.

Of 104 cases from those reviews advancing to Level II review – requiring written justification of perceived inequities in granting of financial aid to student-athletes – the committee has forwarded 47 cases involving 44 institutions for processing by the NCAA enforcement staff.

Ultimately, the reporting program uncovered financial aid violations at 39 institutions – about 9 percent of Division III’s membership. Ten of those cases (most from the just-completed 2008-09 review) still are being processed through enforcement, including three that have been referred to the Division III Committee on Infractions following investigation by the enforcement staff.

The 29 institutions whose cases have been finalized were found to have committed secondary – or isolated or inadvertent – violations. Because the program has focused during its first four years on educational rather than punitive measures, none of those schools publicly have been identified.

“These schools do not fit a single profile,” said Eric Hartung, NCAA associate director of research and staff liaison to the financial aid committee. “They range in enrollment, athletics department size, cost and financial resources.”

The annual reporting program was established in 2005 to support one of Division III's bedrock philosophical principles: student-athletes should be treated like all other students in the awarding of financial aid. Athletics leadership, ability, participation or performance are not permitted to be factors in the packaging process.

Since 2005, most of the 39 institutions that committed violations of financial aid legislation considered newly enrolled students’ previous participation or leadership in athletics in determining who received financial aid and how much.

“These violations can result from an admissions office rating, which may look at participation in a variety of activities,” Hartung explained. “That’s perfectly fine for admissions, but if the admissions rating then is used to determine an amount of aid a student can receive, and if the rating continues to include participation in athletics or whether the student served as a team captain, it improperly can become a factor in the awarding of that aid.”

Sixteen of the 39 cases involved consideration of athletics participation in the awarding of aid, and 12 involved consideration of leadership in athletics.

The 137 schools that received a Level I review during the past four years submitted data that indicated at least one of the following circumstances:

• Student-athletes received 4 percent more in financial aid than comparable students at an institution, as determined through a data-based estimate of variance in aid at the institution.
• The difference in the proportion of student-athletes’ financial need met by institutional gift aid compared to other students was a statistical outlier.
• The difference in the proportion of institutional gift aid awarded to student-athletes in a group of new students at an institution, compared to the proportion of new student-athletes in that group, was a statistical outlier.
• Three or more student-athletes in a single sport or sports were identified for three consecutive years as statistical outliers.

A Level I review in any given year also may include institutions that were reviewed the previous year, but the committee took no action other than to require a repeat review, as well as institutions with cases that were referred to the enforcement staff during the previous year.

In addition to posting the four-year report on the NCAA Web site, the committee sent an explanatory memorandum (including links to the online report) this week to every Division III institution and conference.

The fifth year of financial aid reporting begins July 1, and the program may begin to produce more punitive measures for violations of financial aid legislation, based in part on an action last year by the Division III Presidents Council.

The Council has endorsed a recommendation by the financial aid committee that the Committee on Infractions more actively consider a wider range of available disciplinary measures, including:

• Public reprimand, particularly for recurring or more severe violations.
• Institutional ineligibility for NCAA benefits and services, such as grant funding.
• Institutional ineligibility to vote at the Convention and/or ineligibility of institutional personnel for service on NCAA committees.
• Ineligibility for NCAA championships.
• Prohibition of outside competition by an institutional team or teams for a specified period of time.
• Loss of active membership.