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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / MARCH 25
UH Athletic Director-elect David Matlin.
The University of Hawaii said it expects to announce its cost of attendance stipend for scholarship athletes Tuesday.
A morning press conference is being planned, officials said.
NCAA legislation allowing schools to offer cost of attendance stipends to scholarship athletes became operative Aug. 1. The stipends are to cover costs beyond the traditional tuition, books, room and board previously covered by scholarships.
Athletic director David Matlin declined comment on how many of the approximately 250 scholarship athletes will be covered and for how much.
Matlin said last week that the maximum, if fully funded, would be in the range of approximately $3,925 per athlete though they might not be fully funded or available to all athletes to begin with.
A report to the UH Board of Regents earlier this year estimated that if all scholarship athletes received fully-funded COA stipends it could cost the athletic department upwards of $1 million per year.
Matlin has said that he has been in contact with potential donors to underwrite a portion of the stipends, including at least one who specifically wanted to target the football program.
Earlier this month the Associated Students of the University of Hawaii (ASUH) adopted a resolution supporting stipends for the school’s athletes, "…under the condition that the expenses not come from the general student body population or from the State Legislature and shall instead be appropriated from an endowment fund or from private sponsors…"
