Funding College Athletics/Paying College Athletes The view from the inside

Cost-of-Attendance Scholarships

Policy Change Will Cover Costs Such as Transportation, Miscellaneous Expenses

For the first time in modern sports history, college athletes at big-time sports schools can get scholarships that cover more than tuition, room, board and books.

The NCAA’s five richest athletic conferences on Saturday voted to allow their 65 schools to offer players scholarships that cover the full cost of attending college, which could amount to a few thousand dollars a year more.

The vote, at the NCAA’s annual conference near Washington, D.C., was among the first official measures voted into place since the NCAA’s so-called power conferences last year won the freedom to make some of their own rules.

Representatives of schools in the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern conferences voted 79-1 to allow full cost-of-attendance scholarships. The votes of 15 athlete representatives are included in the tally. The NCAA didn’t say which school opposed the measure. The change, years in the making, will cover costs involved in attending school, such as transportation and miscellaneous expenses.

The schools approved several other proposals Saturday, including new concussion management protocols, a guarantee that scholarships can’t be cut for athletic reasons and a measure that makes it easier for players to borrow money against their future earnings.

The issue of giving athletes more money has kicked around the NCAA for years and is part of why the big conferences fought for more rule-making freedom. A push by the richer schools to allow stipends, supported by NCAA President Mark Emmert, was thwarted in 2011 after lower-earning athletic departments raised concerns about the expense.

But the big conferences gave those schools a reason to give their schools more freedom to increase benefits for athletes, suggesting they might leave the division altogether and take with them the billions in revenue they generate.