NCAA makes right move, retains current initial-eligibility sliding scale

The NCAA was all set to raise the initial-eligibility sliding scale to a level in which many high school kids would not have been able to qualify to play college sports. However, the organization announced on Thursday it will retain the current sliding scale.

After an outcry within the industry, the NCAA has decided to maintain the current sliding academic scale instead of raising the standards beginning in 2016. The Division I Board of Directors made the decision on Thursday.

Coaches throughout the college basketball ranks were concerned that the move, an effort to increase academic success, would have had a major impact -- especially on inner-city kids. 

Currently, student-athletes with a 2.5 GPA need an 820 on the SAT to be eligible. Under the proposed 2016 changes, the same student with a 2.5 GPA would have needed to score a 1,000 on the SAT. 

"The Board has determined that requiring prospects to meet a more stringent sliding scale starting in 2016 would have yielded a number of unintended consequences," the NCAA announced Thursday. "Those consequences led the Board to its decision to retain the current sliding scale standard." 

One of the rationales was the impact on socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. 

Committee of Academic Performance chair Walter Harrison, also the president at the University of Hartford, said the "enormity of the impact on minorities, the numerous other academic changes set to take place soon and the positive trends in Academic Progress Rates were factors in his support of the sliding-scale re-examination." 

"APRs are improving, and I believe they will continue to improve," Harrison said. "I'm concerned about minority students who would be affected by the dramatic change to the sliding scale." 

Multiple coaches told CBSSports.com that, under the increased sliding scale, less than 25 percent of their current players would have been eligible as freshman.