The NCAA and its membership adopted 14 new rules which went into effect August 1, 2020.  Two of the more impactful new rules are proposal numbers 2019-116: Graduate Student Transfer and 2019-119: Exempted Need-Based Financial Aid and are explained below.

2019-116: Graduate Student Transfer

This rule provides student-athletes who graduated from a four-year college other than UVA an opportunity to enroll in post-baccalaureate programs at UVA, like those student-athletes who earned their undergraduate degree from UVA.  Graduate level transfer student-athletes now have the choice of pursuing a specific graduate degree program at UVA or enrolling as full-time students taking classes toward any UVA degree and becoming immediately eligible to play any sport at UVA.

Prior to the rule change, graduate level transfer student-athletes must have been admitted and enrolled in a specific graduate degree program.

2019-119: Exempted Need-Based Financial Aid

This rule allows our equivalency sports to exempt need-based aid from their NCAA-legislated team equivalency.  At UVA, need-based aid is provided by the institution under the UVA ACCESS program.  Under the ACCESS program, any self-help aid (federal loans and work study) can be replaced with athletics aid and is now exempt from the team’s NCAA maximum equivalency limit.  The rule change allows a student-athlete to receive both ACCESS and athletics aid, with only the athletics aid being countable toward the team’s NCAA equivalency.

Prior to the rule change, if a student-athlete received athletics aid and ACCESS aid, both types of aid would be countable toward the team’s NCAA equivalency.