Checks will be issued to athletes?

Tribune-Review reports.

Stipend to offset college athletes’ costs could unbalance playing field

For decades, the scholarship model in college athletics remained unchanged: room and board, tuition and books, miscellaneous fees.

“At one point,” Pitt athletic director Scott Barnes said, “there was some laundry money on top of that. It got changed and went back to room, board, tuition and fees.”

This year, those items will be supplemented for the first time at 65 of the richest schools: those in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC — the Power 5 conferences. At Pitt, the first cost-of-attendance checks will be issued in October to about 350 full and partial scholarship athletes.

Dan Bartholomae, Pitt’s executive associate athletic director for compliance and administration, said four $824 checks totaling $3,296 will be distributed in October, December, February and April to athletes on full scholarship. Those with partial scholarships will get less. Graduate students, who generally have more personal expenses than undergraduates, will get a total of $5,922, he said.