BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1743
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Date of Hearing: March 27, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Marty Block, Chair
AB 1743 (Campos) - As Introduced: February 17, 2012
SUBJECT : Student athletes: scholarships.
SUMMARY : Defines a postsecondary education institution for
purposes of reporting athletic scholarship information, as
specified, as an institution with a physical campus and athletic
facilities used to support one or more of the institution's
athletic programs that is located in the State of California.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill is tagged non-fiscal by Legislative
Counsel.
COMMENTS : Background . Existing law, established by AB 2079
(Torlakson, Chapter 592, Statutes of 2010) requires all
California postsecondary educational institutions that offer
athletic scholarships to provide scholarship information on
their websites, in order to ensure that the recruitment process
and subsequent scholarship agreements are transparent for both
students and parents. Information that must be posted includes:
1)The college's most recent cost of attendance expenses;
2)The portion of these expenses prohibited, per the National
Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) rules, from inclusion
in a full grant-in-aid scholarship;
3)Whether the college provides athletic scholarships for summer
school;
4)The average monthly scholarship payment received by students
living on- and off-campus;
5)Information regarding the college's and NCAA's policies on
scholarship renewals, payment of athletically-related medical
expenses, and athletic release for student athletes wishing to
transfer; and,
6)NCAA scholarship rules related to verbal offers and National
Letters of Intent, as specified.
AB 1743
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Need for this bill . According to the author, "Postsecondary
schools with a primary campus in another state that have
satellite campuses in California and/or online classes offered
in California are included within the meaning of "California
postsecondary educational institutions" under the prior
legislation. Accordingly, these off-campus facilities are
required to comply with the website scholarship information
requirement. Since these schools do not have athletic teams
operating in California it is impracticable to require them to
provide athletic scholarship information on their websites."
Affected institutions . This new definition would exclude any
postsecondary school that has an athletics program at an
institution in another state but offers only online courses in
California, including Ashford University in Iowa (which is owned
by California-based Bridgepoint Education, Inc.), the sponsor of
this bill. Further, Ashford University participates in the
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, not NCAA, so
posting NCAA scholarship information is not relevant for its
students.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Ashford University
Opposition
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Analysis Prepared by : Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960