NCAA announces cash payouts to members schools for past scholarships

The NCAA will be giving schools anywhere from over $150,000 to over $1 million to pay them back for scholarships from four seasons ago.

For years, the ongoing debate in the world of college sports has been about whether athletes should get a paycheck in addition to their cost of school being covered. Some schools have talked about how it would hurt them having to shell out more money to compete for top athletes. Well, the NCAA is doing something that might hurt that argument.

The governing body of college sports announced that they will be giving back close to $200 million dollars — yes, you saw that number right — to all of their member schools to make up for scholarship costs during the 2013-14 academic year. Schools will receive their share of the poll based on how many scholarships they have.

The big winner will be the Big Ten. According to the list of how much each school will get (h/t USA Today Sports), the conference will see six of the 12 members schools they had during that year get a million-dollar payday from the NCAA, with Ohio State getting the most of any school at $1.3 million. The Buckeyes are joined by Michigan, Penn State, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

The only other schools getting $1 million or more are Stanford, Virginia and North Carolina. The school receiving the least will be Davidson, which is getting just over $165,000 from the governing body.

Already, smaller schools and those who don’t play football are up in arms since the pigskin scholarships have more weight under the system. According to USA Today, the money will be used for “the direct benefit of the student-athlete and their academic success, life skills, career success, health and safety and student-athlete focused diversity and inclusion initiatives” per the NCAA.

None of the money can be used for things such as salaries for coaches or stadium improvements, among other restrictions. The money will be given out in mid-April.

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