How the recently adopted DI Proposal 2022-20’s and its new set of rules for Transfers, the Portal, and Athletics Aid Have Heads Shaking across DI.
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‘What’s Your 20?’ How the recently adopted Division I Proposal 2022-20’s and its new set of rules for Undergraduate Transfers, the Transfer Portal, and Athletics Aid Have Heads Shaking across the Division I Membership.
Executive Summary
The proposal was recently adopted by the Division I Board of Directors with input from the Division I Transformation Committee.
The proposal was adopted as emergency legislation on August 30, 2022.
The adopted proposal, in part, is aiming to clarify the undergraduate transfer environment, increase accountability on schools that receive transfer student-athletes, and set predictable windows of time for student-athletes to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal each year.
The adopted proposal is effective immediately and applicable to transfer student-athletes seeking eligibility during the 2023-24 academic year and thereafter.
The adopted proposal creates tighter transfer windows set for the weeks after NCAA Championship selections and seasons are concluded as a means to quell student-athletes from making transfer decisions during the playing season.
The adopted proposal bolsters scholarship protections for undergraduate transfers to the point that academic ineligibility, quitting the team, or violation of athletic department policies, individually or collectively, would not be a basis to reduce or cancel that student-athlete’s aid.
Additional scholarship protections place increased accountability on the “receiving” Division I school accepting the transfer.
The receiving Division I school would be on the line for the undergraduate transfer’s scholarship money until the student-athlete graduates or reach their 5-year eligibility time period---irrespective of whether that same student-athlete quits, becomes academically ineligible, or violates team or athletic department policies
The only basis for reducing or canceling athletics aid for an ungraduated transfer student-athlete is if they transfer to another institution or they lose their NCAA amateurism status.
Concerns expressed about creating additional scholarship protections for undergraduate student-athlete transfers that are not provided to their teammates.
Entering the transfer portal outside of an express transfer window would prevent the student-athlete from being eligible for competition immediately under the one-time transfer exception.
The Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee has publicly voiced its concerns around the adopted proposal.
Student-athletes considering a transfer before a transfer window arrives may be stalled in initiating communications with other schools’ coaches.
Athletics department compliance and academic staff may be put on the spot by student-athletes and their inner circle to predict potential transfer eligibility outcomes when a student-athlete does not follow the transfer window dates.
NCAA waivers around the transfer process including student-athletes not entering the transfer portal windows are intended to be narrowly tailored and for “exigent circumstances.”
Clarity is needed for institutions who are concerned with committing potential Level III violations for putting student-athlete names in (or not taking them out of) the Transfer Portal outside the permissible transfer windows.
Tighter transfer windows may invite more tampering by coaches at other schools around student-athletes considering a transfer but waiting for the transfer window to arrive.
Among the numerous major policy issues affecting college sports these days, the transfer process continues to grab headlines. The Division I Board of Directors recently adopted Proposal 2022-20 and the new transfer rules has caused a wave of frustration and concern from within the NCAA membership around due process, unintended consequences, inviting potentially more violations, and creating additional red-tape.
Per adopted Proposal 2022-20, the newly tailored transfer portal entry windows are scripted as follows:
45 consecutive-day period beginning the day after championship selections are made in the sport or May 1-15 for fall sports,
60 consecutive-day period beginning the day after championship selections are made in the sport for winter sports, or
December 1-15 or 45 consecutive-day period for spring sports.
These windows replace the prior singular date deadlines of May 1 for fall and winter sports and July 1 for spring sports that allowed more flexibility and timely entries by student-athletes deciding at any point leading up to those deadline dates to enter the NCAA Transfer Portal.
With the new, narrower transfer portal entry windows, a women’s soccer student-athlete (fall sport), for example, that realizes in September she made a mistake and that her current school and sport program are not a good fit for her, must wait until December before officially notifying the world that she’s interested in transferring to another Division I or other four-year institution. Some critiques note that it’s not in the student-athletes best interest to wait for several weeks to begin exploring new schools and athletic opportunities.
Further, some stakeholders have pointed out that tighter transfer portal entry windows will invite an increase in tampering by coaches and staff at other schools that hear through the grapevine that a student-athlete will enter the portal but is waiting weeks for the entry window to arrive. Logistically speaking, questions remain at the campus level on what compliance administrators are required to do with student-athlete entries already in the portal once a transfer portal entry window has expired and whether student-athletes may continue to communicate with coaches after a transfer window expires and if that factors into using the one-time transfer exception.
On the flip side, others point out that having the student-athlete wait until the end of the season and championship selections to be made before entering the NCAA transfer portal could give the student-athlete (and his or her school and sport experiences) to improve and, ultimately, prevent the transfer from happening altogether if they decide to stay put.
The expedient nature of emergency NCAA legislation is such that sometimes the full scope of emergency legislation—which can be developed and sponsored and adopted in a very short time-frame—is not fully promoted and explained to impacted stakeholders. In this case, some have noted that Division I student-athletes might be the least informed about this major change to the transfer process and its impact on them. Specifically, questions have been raised about how much education direct to student-athletes have about been delivered on these new transfer windows noting student-athletes may be making decisions this week or in the coming weeks about transferring---well before any of the new transfer windows arrive.
There is consternation around the reality that student-athletes are still coming forward to their school’s athletics compliance staff members this month to be placed in the transfer portal even though the new transfer windows can dictate their future competition eligibility fate.
The scholarship protections for undergraduate transfer student-athletes in the recently adopted Proposal 2022-20 may draw the fiercest ire of all. To put into context, a freshmen student-athlete that commits a serious violation of athletic department policy could have his or her athletics aid reduced or canceled per the terms and conditions tied to their scholarship. On the flip side, if one of their teammates that is an undergraduate transfer commits the exact same serious violation of Athletic Department policies as their freshman teammate, the transfer cannot lose their athletics scholarship---due to the new protections outlined in Proposal 2022-20.
Further, those undergraduate transfer student-athlete scholarship protections are heightened to the point that unless the undergraduate transfer transfers again to another (third or fourth or fifth?) institution or loses their NCAA amateurism status, that student-athlete gets to keep their scholarship at the current institution until they graduate or reach their 5-year eligibility clock. These protections override terms that previously could be the basis of reducing or eliminating aid such as a student-athlete running afoul of academic eligibility requirements.
The undergraduate transfer’s scholarship protections are only insulating their own circumstances, but present far-reaching effects to the sport program and other student-athletes. The new legislation poses a significant impact on the team’s scholarship limit. Specifically, under the newly adopted proposal, the undergraduate transfer’s athletics aid remains a “counter” against that team’s NCAA scholarship limit and can’t be replaced by another student-athlete even if the undergraduate transfer quits, violates team rules, enters the transfer portal but doesn’t transfer, or becomes academically ineligible. A question may also exist as to whether the undergraduate transfer even needs to be enrolled at the Division I institution for them to still trigger counter status against their former team’s scholarship limits under the new legislation.
The fairness and opportunities upended by this provision have stakeholders in the membership concerned. For the scenario in which the incoming transfer student-athlete has quit but stays enrolled and eventually graduates---in the years before that transfer graduates, the team they left behind can’t re-award the athletics aid to a student-athlete that is, in fact, training, practicing, and competing for the team. Only if the undergraduate transfer student-athlete transfers and matriculates to another institution, loses their amateurism status, or are deemed a medical non-counter could their aid be exempted or removed from counting against NCAA team scholarship limits.
The adopted proposal does present a financial impact, too, for Athletics Departments’ bottom line. The potential budget impact rests on the receiving institution that would be required to provide athletics aid to scholarship student-athletes through undergraduate degree completion or exhaustion of eligibility, regardless of how much actual sport participation and on-field contributions that transfer student-athlete has for the receiving school.
Other scholarship practices such as if and how a Division I school may script multi-year scholarships agreements in the context of these new undergraduate transfer scholarship protections may become a more popular means to work-around the new transfer rules. The NCAA recently released an education column (FAQ) to assist member institutions to navigate the newly adopted rules, but if and how a multi-year agreement could be scripted (e.g., three-year scholarship with $10,000 in Year 1 and $0 in Years 2 and 3) to work around the multi-year athletics obligation for an undergraduate transfer student-athlete remains unclear.
The new legislation states that “If an undergraduate four-year college transfer student's athletics ability is considered in any degree in awarding financial aid, such aid shall be awarded for a period no less than the student-athlete's five-year period of eligibility or until all requirements to receive a baccalaureate degree are completed, whichever occurs earlier…” That clause, though, doesn’t clarify whether a multi-year scholarship that offers aid in Year 1 but not in future years is a prohibited or permissible scripting practice noting their athletics ability is, in fact, considered---but just didn’t warrant, in the Coach’s mind, aid in all years---only the first year.
The concerns around creating different scholarship protections for student-athletes on the same team or at the same school has practitioners envisioning an on-campus regulatory mosh pit and time-sap.
Specifically, the terms and conditions tied to student-athlete’s scholarship will need to be scripted differently depending on whether the student-athlete is an undergraduate transfer. The reality is that these fluctuating terms will lead to different outcomes and more back-and-forth communications and “customer service” needs requested by student-athletes (and their parents, guardians, attorneys) and internally from coaches and administrators directed to on-campus athletics compliance staffs.
Similar to the uptick of questions on NIL including requests to assist with sometimes nuanced, case by case, student-athlete NIL questions and scenarios, there will be more case by case, student-athlete by student-athlete transfer questions and requests for assurances on future competition eligibility placed on athletics compliance staff at the student-athlete's current Division I school-- and many Division I schools' compliance staff may already be overwhelmed with the volume and chaotic environment that is the modern-day NCAA regulatory frontier.
Discussions around the transfer environment continue on as the Division I Council may continue its discussion around transfers by taking a closer review of graduate student transfer policies.
The adopted proposal’s intent of creating a more predictable transfer process that deters distractions in-season is commendable. The only real opponent to that principle would be the student-athlete who is wanting to advance their transfer decision and process, but can't. Increasing accountability on the receiving institution’s commitment to graduate its inbound transfers is also valid. Whether this proposal deters coaches from recruiting transfers because of the team counter limit consequences is debatable.
Meanwhile, the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee—representing the interests of Division I student-athletes across the country—voiced its concerns here regarding the Division I Board adopting the proposal and implementing transfer windows that curb student-athlete mobility.
In the end, the current iteration of Proposal 2022-20 may hatch a bundle of real-world inequities in terms of student-athletes’ scholarship protections and consequences for serious violations and poor decisions by student-athletes. The new wave of transfer rules may also invite a spike in legislative red-tape and palpable on-campus anxiety for student-athletes, coaches, and administrators that the Transformation initiative was intended to curb.
There are core principles and intentions stemming from this adopted proposal’s rationale that the majority of Division I likely supports. More predictability and less chaos around transfers are valid motivations. The text of the adopted proposal, though, is what matters most in terms of on-campus implementation. The Division I membership will be interested to see if the Division I Board of Directors revisits this emergency legislation with an eye toward addressing the concerns raised.
Athletics Veritas is presented for information purposes only and should not be considered advice or counsel on NCAA compliance matters. For guidance on NCAA rules and processes, always consult your university’s athletics compliance office, conference office, and/or the NCAA.
