The NCAA has proven over the two plus years of President Mark Emmert's administration that the model of the amateur collegiate athlete is under serious pressure of becoming obsolete. Reforms to the NCAA rulebook passed by the Division I Board of Directors in January 2013. Citing "common sense" rulemaking, the NCAA has deregulated aspects of the recruitment of high school athletes which as Emmert says will focus on matters that are real threats to the integrity of the sport and not annoyances. The Board of Directors declined a proposal to increase miscellaneous expenses to a $2,000 stipend for students and Emmert has said the idea will be reviewed again in a committee.
Much criticism has already begun from the deregulation of the recruiting process which focuses on recruitment budgets increasing to handle the increased opportunity schools will have to contact high school players. Most notably through text messages, social media, pamphlets, other printed material and off-campus recruiting. The focus of the Board of Directors seemed to be more on the advantages between small schools and larger schools and how to "level the playing field" for recruitment and administration. It gave no emphasis to assisting student-athletes in their expenses other than a minor increase of $300 beyond normal expenses and how to preserve the collegiate model.
Many collegiate athletes have expressed a desire to be paid more for their expenses during college with the National College Players Association asking for the US Congress to intervene and deregulate the NCAA. They have also set forth guidelines on how to proceed to assist student-athletes that a governing body on collegiate athletics could adopt (see link below). The course taken by the NCAA from these reforms doesn't appear to make any meaningful changes and the lack of consensus by member schools on meaningful change obviously shows interested parties don't wish for the current status of college athletics to change.
http://assets.usw.org/ncpa/Recommendations.pdf
http://www.ncpanow.org/releases_advisories?id=0015
http://www.ncaa.com/news/ncaa/article/2013-01-20/ncaa-takes-first-step-s...
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