All NCAA Div. I spring sport athletes will be given an extra season of eligibility in light of the coronavirus cancelations.
The Council decided that schools will determine how much scholarship money to give next year to athletes who were in what would have been their final season. With this, some athletes could be offered a place on the team but receive no scholarship money.
The NCAA did, however, decide that scholarship limits will be adjusted to account for incoming athletes as well as returning athletes who decided to stay for an extra season.
Winter sports that were cut off mid-season, like basketball, will not get an additional year of eligibility.
While this was a "common sense" approach, it will certainly come with new challenges. According to USA Today, these challenges range from "cost to baseball-specific issues rising from Major League Baseball reducing its draft this year to Title IX, to the impact on the future roster and scholarship management and the recruitment of athletes who are now high school juniors and sophomores."
With the economic issues schools are facing, though, it could be very difficult for some to extend athletes' eligibility in practice.
That's why, in what an NCAA statement termed "a nod to the financial uncertainty faced by higher education," schools are being given the latitude to determine how much aid current seniors will get if they choose to return next year.
Both college athletes and their schools will have tough decisions to make soon. Depending on the number that chooses to return, though, most schools are promising to find a way to make it happen.