The Colorado Buffaloes are one of just a few athletic programs at the NCAA FBS level that has plans to offer student-athletes money as a reward for good grades.
Surprisingly, only 22 of 130 eligible schools are planning to pay their players for their performance in the classrooms, a rule that changed in August of 2020.
On the surface, it is quite surprising that more programs don’t take advantage of this new freedom and give their players even more incentives to do well in the classroom.
The entire list is as follows, as provided by Dan Murphy of ESPN:
- Arkansas
- Auburn
- Clemson
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Florida
- Iowa State
- Kentucky
- LSU
- Miami
- Missouri
- North Carolina
- Oklahoma
- Oklahoma State
- Ole Miss
- Oregon
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Washington
- Wisconsin
As the list shows, there are just three Pac-12 programs taking advantage of this feature.
Colorado, Oregon, and UW among only 22 of 130 NCAA FBS-level schools paying athletes for good grades
"The NCAA changed its rules in August 2020 to allow schools to pay each of their athletes up to $5,980 per year as a reward for academic performance." https://t.co/GhkKnBNq6R
— SportsPac12 (@SportsPac12) April 6, 2022
With the rule being in effect for such a short time, perhaps more programs decide to use this going forward. With the amount of revenue these schools make, especially the high-profile ones that aren’t on the list, it is surprising that they aren’t rolling this out.
But, as Murphy notes, more should be following suit fairly soon.
For the 22 programs that are planning to do this, that might be an important extra incentive to choose that school for college sports.
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