This year will be a crucial one for colleges in the four most-lucrative athletic conferences. That includes some colleges our local reporters cover, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Texas Christian University, and the University of Florida, to name just a few. 

Later this spring, a court is expected to OK a settlement agreement that would allow colleges in the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, and Southeastern Conferences to begin paying their athletes directly. 

In the first year of the settlement, each college in the Power Four could share 22% of average revenues, more than $20 million per college, per year. Over the decade covered by the agreement, the total value of payments shared with college athletes could exceed $20 billion, according to a May 2024 statement shared by lawyers who represented the athletes. 

This is a sea change for Division I college sports that will impact athletes and the bottom-line of universities.

I chatted about what’s ahead with Michael H. LeRoy, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s College of Law. LeRoy specializes in labor issues affecting professional and college athletes. 

Closing the NIL gender-pay gap 

While name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals have opened college athletes up to new sources of revenue, NIL payouts so far aren’t equitable. And that’s despite Title IX requiring that college athletic programs eliminate gender disparities in financial benefits.

LeRoy has found in his research that 90% of NIL money goes to male athletes playing football and basketball, and the other sports divide up the remaining 10%.

“That is a major challenge for schools going forward,” LeRoy said. “With the House settlement they are making direct NIL deals with athletes, and so they have to choose between the market or the law.” 

LeRoy has a new pay-equity study coming out in a law review later this year that found a 10-to-1 disparity in NIL pay between men’s and women’s basketball players.  

A Department of Education memo released in the final days of former President Joe Biden’s administration said that, under Title IX, future payments from colleges have to be proportionately available to male and female athletes. 

“Schools remain responsible for ensuring that they are offering equal athletic opportunities in their athletic programs, including in the NIL context,” the memo said. 

President Donald Trump isn’t expected to uphold the directive. “The incoming administration has not expressed any keen interest in equality,” LeRoy said. 

Yet even if the Trump administration throws out the guidance, colleges still need to recognize that women have a right to sue under Title IX, LeRoy said. 

The settlement’s impact

It’s early to say exactly what the impact of the settlement will be. But as proposed, it will be costly for colleges. 

While commercial revenue has increased for football and men’s basketball, athletic spending still exceeds revenue at the majority of colleges, according to NCAA data. The University of Missouri, for example, recently had to cover its athletic department’s $15 million budget deficit and has given the department more than $40 million over the last fiscal year. 

LeRoy pointed to a few potential possibilities to keep an eye on as colleges work to afford the payments: In order to make the payments to athletes, colleges may end up needing to cut non-revenue sports or athletic departments could reduce scholarships for athletes and use the NIL funds to make up the difference. 

We haven’t seen it yet, but LeRoy said he expects NIL to become an active area of litigation, particularly around gender equity.

++ TCU basketball player Sedona Prince scores major changes at the NCAA (via our partner Fort Worth Report) 

++ NCAA settlement may pressure schools to pay out millions to top athletes. Will Pitt keep up? (via our partner PublicSource) 

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Gender gaps in Hawai’i workforce training 

The number of students in workforce-training programs has exploded in Hawai’i in recent years. But the programs aren’t equally serving boys and girls, we found in reporting with Honolulu Civil Beat out this week. 

Boys made up nearly three-quarters of the state’s career and technical education courses focused on STEM and information technology in 2022-23, and about 70% of programs focused on manufacturing. On the other hand, girls made up three-quarters of health care programs such as nursing. 

Elsewhere on Open Campus

Our reporters are reporting on what the return of President Donald Trump means for higher-ed in their communities. If you have questions we should be asking, email me.

From Cleveland: An Ohio college-acess group told Amy Morona, our higher-ed reporter at Signal Cleveland, that they have been rethinking the financial-aid advice they give mixed-status families. There are growing concerns that completing the FAFSA could expose undocumented people to deportation under Trump’s planned immigration crackdown.

“We want our families to talk to each other, to understand the decision they need to make that is the best decision for their family,” said Nancy Dunn, who helps families prepare and enroll in college in her role at College Now Greater Cleveland.

From New York City: The City University of New York, known for having robust support for undocumented students, held a webinar recently to advise students and their families on what to expect under Trump. More than 500 participants attended, according to Jonathan Custodio, one of our CUNY reporters at The City.

About 30% of CUNY’s roughly quarter-million students are foreign born, including about 4,000 who are undocumented.

Nermeen Arastu, co-director of the Immigration & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic at the CUNY School of Law, said on the webinar that core question is: “How are we, together, going to protect our communities, particularly in the CUNY system, our clients, our students?” 

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