Last year the NCAA overhauled its academic standards, making it tougher for students transferring from community colleges to play Division I sports.
But so far those rules have led to the creation of new shortcuts, putting community-college transfers in position to play without making the academic improvements the NCAA had sought in the first place.
To meet the new requirements, which include a minimum grade-point average of 2.5—up from 2.0 in previous years—students have adopted a variety of tactics. Among them: enrolling at multiple community colleges to avoid prerequisites or tougher courses on students’ home campuses; signing up for remedial classes in condensed formats, allowing students to speed through material without always learning what they should; and changing majors to ease their entry into big-time programs.
According to the NCAA, athletes who start at two-year colleges are among the least prepared academically, graduating at rates far lower than players who qualify for major-college sports directly from high school. And many of those students were already cutting corners, loading up on physical-education classes and less-rigorous courses.
Academic advisers for two-year athletes are not against a higher bar, but they complain that the NCAA raised its requirements too quickly, and that the standards are steeper than those for other players. They worry that many athletes in need of remediation will not have enough time to receive it while on a two-year campus.
“No one is opposed to fair academic standards,” says Evans Roderick, who advises football players at Mt. San Antonio College, a prominent feeder program in California. “But if you’re trying to squeeze these kids through in two years, it ain’t gonna happen.”
Leaders of two-year institutions have called for an academic “year of readiness,” which would build in a third year toward the completion of an associate degree. Under such a scenario, the NCAA would allow students six years, rather than the current five, to complete their athletic eligibility.
“What’s the holy grail about the five-year clock?” Mr. Roderick says. “The average student graduates in six years, but we’re expecting athletes to do it in less.”
What’s at Stake
It’s unclear how many students will be adversely affected by the NCAA’s changes, which went into effect for students who enrolled full time after August 2012. But many community-college officials expect the impact to be significant.
Last year at least 2,500 athletes transferred from two-year colleges to the NCAA’s highest levels, including some 1,000 in men’s basketball and football alone.
The new rules require those players to take a more-rigorous academic load than in the past, including a course in natural or physical science. The NCAA had already expected two-year students to complete two English-composition courses as well as college-level mathematics. Starting this year, the association has put limits on physical-activity credits, allowing only two such classes to transfer.
Many two-year students have leaned heavily on classes in physical education to pad their GPAs. In recent years, 20 percent of athletes from two-year institutions transferred at least a dozen physical-education credits, the NCAA says. In some cases, students arrived in Division I with half of their 48 hours in PE units.
“We could not in good conscience continue to let that happen,” says Diane Dickman, the NCAA’s managing director of academic and membership affairs. “Those students weren’t getting a solid community-college experience, and they were absolutely bound to fail at the four-year institution.”
Last year roughly 20 percent of junior-college athletes came to NCAA colleges with a grade-point average below 2.5, the NCAA says. That figure is not predictive of future classes, as transfers could rise to meet the new threshold. But the number could give some idea of the potential fallout.
Some of the most-prominent two-year institutions have the most at stake. Iowa Western Community College, which won the national championship in football among junior colleges in 2012, sent 18 players from that team to elite NCAA programs, including Jake Waters, who started at quarterback for Kansas State University this past season.
About half of those players did not have a 2.5 grade-point average, estimates Mike Strohmeier, the Reivers’ assistant head coach and recruiting coordinator. He believes a majority of this year’s class has the potential to hit that mark, but he expects to see some students settle for Division II.
“The kid who used to go to Texas Tech—now that guy’s going to the University of Minnesota-Duluth,” he says.
As for those still hoping to play in the Football Bowl Subdivision, some are seeking easier paths, says Ben Bannon, a former academic adviser for Iowa Western athletes. As many as 10 football players recently decided to pursue an associate-of-general-studies degree, which has a less-rigorous math component than another general-studies track that was already popular with athletes.
Football players have also taken advantage of the college’s decision to merge three developmental-math classes into one course, Mr. Bannon says. Students have the potential to finish much faster, he says, but they often don’t graduate prepared for math at a four-year institution.
In fact, Mr. Bannon, who recently took a job at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, worries that the NCAA’s new standards may invite misconduct. He believes the system is set up to move players along academically even if they aren’t always ready for the next level.
“The faculty know that these students have a scholarship offer on the line, and that puts a lot of pressure on them,” he says. “You may have a professor say, ‘Oh, instead of a C, I’ll give him a B or allow extra credit.’”
‘Is That Ethical?’
Of the roughly 350 athletes at the College of the Canyons, in California, about 90 percent have remedial needs in math and English, says Albert Loaiza, an academic counselor for athletes there.
Some of those students need as many as 25 hours of remedial classes, he says, making it nearly impossible to transfer to a four-year institution after just two years.
Some athletes are helped by the college’s English department, Mr. Loaiza says, which has combined what were once three remedial classes into two. Students can take those classes during a regular semester, or register for a five-week “intersession"—something that Mr. Loaiza says an increasing number of football players have expressed interest in.
Many players have struggled with those condensed classes, he says. But some feel as if they have no choice but to take them. California does not offer athletics scholarships to two-year athletes, and many students don’t have the money for an extra year of school.
Other athletes are loading up on online classes, which often cost considerably less than ones offered face to face. Mr. Loaiza says he has seen a doubling of interest in online classes among athletes in the past year. But he worries about the lack of rigor and oversight in such classes—he has heard some students say their girlfriends or others have performed coursework for them.
Players have also registered for online classes to sidestep prerequisites that the College of the Canyons requires. According to Mr. Loaiza, some colleges with online offerings do not require students to take classes in sequence—a loophole he says major-college coaches know about.
“Is that ethical? Is that right?” he says. “As an educator, I don’t like it, because it doesn’t prepare students for the next level.”
Some community colleges don’t allow such classes to count toward a student’s degree. But at many NCAA colleges, Mr. Loaiza says, the credits have transferred.
Encouraging Change
NCAA officials say it is not their place to dictate what courses colleges accept. Their intention with the new requirements, they say, was to identify a group of students that was underperforming academically and spur it to change.
The higher standards, they say, are part of an effort to raise the academic expectations for all athletes. Among other changes, the NCAA has increased its initial-eligibility standards, making it tougher for athletes who come directly from high school to participate in Division I sports.
NCAA leaders say they debated for months about how much to increase the minimum-grade standard for two-year transfers. They settled on a 2.5, Ms. Dickman says, after noting that a much higher percentage of two-year transfers graduated from four-year colleges when they came in at that level or above.
As for students with the greatest remedial needs, maybe more of them just won’t make it to Division I—or they might have fewer years of athletic eligibility when they get there.
The association considered allowing an academic “year of readiness” for students in need of significant remediation, Ms. Dickman says, but decided against it for now.
“It doesn’t mean it won’t ever come back again to be talked about,” she says. “But we want to see the results that come out of the new standards before we consider any further changes.”
The NCAA is concerned that some players might be working around its new requirements. But Ms. Dickman says she did not want that to deter the NCAA’s progress.
“Because of the potential for fraud, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t keep setting standards that are appropriate for higher graduation rates,” she says. “We can’t be derailed by online-course activity that might not be as rigorous as it should be, or by someone trying to cheat the system.”
