NCAA schools must decide if they'll offer stipends to athletes

GREENSBORO, North Carolina -- To pay or not to pay — that is the question.

The Power Five college conferences will start to offer full cost-of-attendance athletics scholarships this fall, but other schools also are facing a dilemma on providing extra money to their athletes. Figures vary, but the cost runs from $1,500 to $6,000 per scholarship per school year.

So far, many schools below the Power Five are not biting. There are a bevy of reasons, but one is significant: They don’t know where they’d get the money.

“It makes no sense to me to get into that kind of game,” MEAC commissioner Dennis Thomas said. “It’s just not prudent from my perspective.”

The schools of the MEAC and the Southern Conference, which contain N.C. A&T and UNC-Greensboro, respectively, have no plans to provide full cost of attendance anytime soon.

CONTINUE READING