Because it's all about the students, obviously

The full-cost-of-attendance scholarship idea is a pretty good one, right? It basically puts the onus on the schools with cash-pile-generating athletic departments to give a small chunk of that money back to the athletes to slightly improve their quality of life. It won't stop any of the Ohio State-level shenanigans/violations, but nothing will. It's a small step in the right direction.

This, on the other hand, completely defeats the purpose:

The NCAA is exploring a reduction in the number of scholarships programs can give out as part of a long-term look at reallocating various resources around the organization and at member schools.

Following a six-hour meeting in late September, the Resource Allocation Working Group, chaired by Georgia President Michael Adams, agreed to consider a reduction in FBS football scholarships from the current number of 85 to 80 and a reduction in the number of FCS football scholarships from 63 to 60. The reductions would likely follow a move toward a full cost-of-attendance scholarship that is expected to be passed in early 2012. In addition to football, the group agreed to consider a reduction in the number of men's basketball scholarships from 13 to 12 and in women's basketball from 15 to 13.

Cutting scholarships to pay for slightly better scholarships = Jon Stewart picture.

I've made it a goal to never, ever, ever read internet comments. The ignorance/stupidity makes me cry. But when I first read this particular story, there was only one comment on it, and it summed it up my thoughts so awesomely perfectly that I'm literally going to cut and paste it and give all the credit for my response to commenter gl_stand_ftw. Commence win:

Let me see if I get this right about the NCAA.

The NCAA has expanded the numbers of games so that some teams now must play as many as fourteen in season now.

It has expanded the number of bowls so that nearly half of all FBS schools get a bowl invite.

It has allowed the expansion of conferences so now that teams will play more conference games, travel farther, and play in a greater diversity of time zones.

It has expanded the bowl schedule so now some teams are playing until the middle of January.

It has expanded the television packages and contracts so that now in order for the deals to make sense financially, a 3:30 game on CBS takes four to five hours to play since we gotta have all those Budweiser and Ford commercials in to make ends meet.

It has expanded the game itself by introducing sudden death so now OT can last hours.

It has expanded the restrictions on recruiting contacts, practice time, coach-player contact during offseason, conditioning time so now players have less time physically and mentally to prepare for more games.

It has expanded the NCAA tourney and the length of the tournament itself via scheduling so that it takes a month to determine a national champion in basketball.

But now after all these moves which are clearly geared to do one thing and one thing only and that is to make lots of money, the NCAA wants to cut scholarships so that fewer players have a chance to obtain an education, teams will have to play grueling schedules over longer seasons, in longer games the require more travel time, with less practice, less conditioning, and with smaller rosters.

Yea, that's what I thought -- makes absolutely no sense.

Schwing. That guy 1, NCAA 0.