Hawkeye Academic Advantage Program details Iowa's Alston awards

Starting this fall, full-scholarship athletes at Iowa will have the opportunity to earn up to $1,495 per semester as part of the university’s disbursement of Alston awards for academic achievement. Iowa’s Alston awards program is called the Hawkeye Academic Advantage Program and it’s a different approach than how other universities plan to provide academic financial awards. Through a public records request, On3 obtained a document that details the Hawkeye Academic Advantage Program.

Iowa’s Alston awards are tied to athletes’ scholarship equivalency status, as well as their ability to earn both their eligibility and retention points for their team’s Academic Progress Rate (APR). From one academic term to the next, an athlete must be academically eligible and return to the school as a full-time student in order to earn the two APR points.

An athlete who’s on full scholarship can receive $1,495 per semester while an athlete who only receives 50% of a scholarship can receive $747.50 per semester. Walk-on athletes aren’t eligible to receive the annual awards related to their eligibility and retention, while full-scholarship athletes can earn up to $2,990 annually.

Walk-on athletes who graduate from Iowa after being a member of an athletic program for at least three years can receive $2,990 per year upon graduation.

Iowa’s Hawkeye Academic Advantage Program also provides deferred payments, such that half of the maximum allowable annual amount of $5,980 is withheld until an athlete earns his or her first bachelor’s degree from Iowa. Iowa’s Alston awards policy also notes that athletes can earn the deferred portion of their academic financial awards for a maximum of four years. That means full-scholarship athletes can earn up to $11,960 in deferred payments upon graduation.

The annual Alston awards worth $1,495 per semester for full-scholarship athletes are available for a maximum of five years if an athlete still has eligibility and is on an active roster.

Additional details on Iowa’s Alston awards

Iowa’s Hawkeye Academic Advantage Program notes that its eligibility and scholarship criteria will be evaluated each semester.

In addition to walk-on athletes, there are other athletes who will only qualify for deferred payments but not the annual per-semester awards. Those athletes include athletes who are medically disqualified, whose sport was discontinued, who are on scholarship but no longer active participants in their sport, and who have exhausted their eligibility but are still advancing towards their first undergraduate degree.

Athletes who are graduate students or who are part of a post-baccalaureate program aren’t eligible for deferred payments.

Additionally, Iowa’s policy states that athletes with “Student-Athlete Code of Conduct or University Student Code of Conduct violations may be subject to a reduced financial incentive.”

What are Alston awards?

In a 9-0 decision in the NCAA v. Alston case last summer, the Supreme Court affirmed a district court’s injunction regarding NCAA rules that limited education-related benefits in violation of the Sherman Act.

Due to notable events in the summer of 2021, college athletes are able to earn additional compensation through NIL and Alston awards. However, there are important distinctions between the two sources of income. Third parties, such as fans, donors or businesses, provide NIL compensation for the use of an athlete’s name, image and likeness. Alston awards are direct compensation from universities to athletes, which are tied to an athlete’s academic achievement.

Each school can determine its own policy for providing the academic financial awards — if it offers them at all. Many Division I schools, such as Iowa, have announced that they’ll start offering Alston awards in the 2022-23 academic year.

There’s no limit to what an athlete can earn through NIL activities. For example, Sierra Canyon High School guard Bronny James leads the NIL 100 with an On3 NIL Valuation that places his projected market value at $6.4 million annually. However, there’s an argument to be made that if and when Alston awards are ubiquitous at the DI level, they could prove to be the more financially beneficial source of compensation for all athletes across all sports.

NIL technology provider Opendorse projected that on average, DI athletes will earn $3,195 in the second academic year of the NCAA’s NIL era. That’s 53% of the maximum Alston award amount per year.

UCLA quarterback Chase Griffin told On3, “I’d like to stress that the one thing that will help all athletes, more than NIL, is funding the Alston stipends this year. That is honestly more than most athletes are making on NIL.”

How other schools provide Alston awards

Only a select number of schools provided Alston awards during the 2021-22 academic year. Many of them are SEC institutions. The awards will be much more prevalent nationally during the 2022-23 school year.

The BIG EAST is mandating the availability of Alston awards for men’s and women’s basketball players for the 2022-23 academic year. It will be optional for BIG EAST schools to provide them for athletes in other sports.

Following the 2021 fall semester, UConn paid 96.4% of its men’s and women’s basketball players the maximum per-semester amount of $2,990. UConn athletes simply must remain eligible from one semester to the next in order to receive the academic financial award.

For comparison, 71% of athletes at Oregon earned the maximum amount of $5,980 across three academic terms during the 2021-22 school year. At Missouri, 32.2% of athletes earned the maximum per-semester amount of $2,990 after the 2021 fall semester.