USC Upstate was one of seven schools to receive a grant from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to support academic programs that help student-athletes earn their degrees, the NCAA announced today.

Upstate was one of three schools to receive a $100,000 grant as the NCAA awarded a total of $500,000 to seven Division I schools. Joining the Spartans were Saint Peter’s, Texas Rio Grande Valley, Maryland Eastern Shore, Bethune-Cookman, Idaho State and Arkansas Pine Bluff.

The grants help schools improve the academic success of their student-athletes by supporting their efforts to meet the requirements of the Division I Academic Performance Program, which was developed to ensure schools provide an environment that supports education while enhancing the ability of student-athletes to earn a degree. Previous recipients of the grants have used the funds to provide laptops that student-athletes can take on the road to keep up on lectures, or to improve facilities to give student-athletes more space for study halls.

Schools eligible to apply for the program are Division I institutions that are not in the Football Bowl Subdivision and whose resources − as determined by per capita institutional expenditures, athletics department funding and Pell Grant aid − rank among the division’s bottom 10 percent. Also eligible are institutions in non-FBS conferences in which at least 60 percent of the schools in that conference are in the bottom 10 percent of resources of active Division I members.

The announced awards mark the fourth round of Accelerating Academic Success Program funding distributed by the NCAA.

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