The University of Hawaii said it will announce its plans for awarding cost of attendance stipends for scholarship athletes Tuesday.

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 already provided for by scholarships.

Athletic director David Matlin declined comment on how many of the approximately 250 scholarship athletes will be covered or at what levels.

Matlin has previously said, “I don’t see us fully funded to begin with, but I think starting now in some fashion is important.”

He 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 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.

UH will be among eight members of the 12-school Mountain West Conference to offer some form of COA. The Air Force Academy already offers stipends, while New Mexico, Nevada and Nevada-Las Vegas said they may delay stipends until next year.

Earlier this month the Associated Students of the University of Hawaii 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 …”