In a decision that applies to every sports team at the Division I level, the NCAA Div. I board of directors approved the Academic Progress Rate at its 99th annual convention held this month in Dallas.

“This action today is a critical step in our journey to establishing much stronger and significant academic standards for NCAA student-athletes,” said Robert Hemenway, chair of the Board of Directors and chancellor of the University of Kansas in a press release. “The ultimate goal is for our student-athletes to stay on track academically and graduate.”

The Academic Progress Rate is roughly based on a 50 percent graduation rate over a five-year period. This is based on the number of student-athletes on each team who achieve eligibility and are full-time students each term.

Teams will lose scholarships when players who are academically ineligible leave the school. This means that if any team at Sacramento State falls below the Academic Progress Rate it stands to lose — at most — 10 percent of its scholarships.

“The new guidelines that the NCAA is in the process of adopting I think strengthens the accountability that every institution will need to have in terms of what they are doing with their athletes,” Sac State athletics director Terry Wanless said. “I believe that it is good legislation that will have a positive long-term effect on our intercollegiate athletic program.

“I think it will be a strong deterrent to those institutions that simply pay no attention to the student’s academic progress.”

Every men’s and women’s team at 325 Div. I institutions, more than 5,000, must reach the Academic Progress Rate beginning next fall to avoid losing scholarships.

Erik Christianson, director of public and media relations for the NCAA said, “The most important goal is to keep student-athletes on track, to ensure they are academically successful and ultimately graduate.”

Contemporaneous penalties could begin after this year and will serve as warnings for teams with poor academic performance.

Schools with continued problems will face more punitive historical penalties that could eventually lead to a team losing NCAA membership status.

The Academic Progress Rate was set by the Division I Committee on Academic Performance whose job is to serve as the oversight body for the academic performance program.

The main purpose of the academic performance program, according to NCAA Bylaw 23.01.1, is to ensure that Division I schools recognize and support the primacy of the academic mission of its member institutions.

“Success as a student as well as an athlete, simply, is the only acceptable standard for the future in college sports,” said Myles Brand, NCAA President, during the opening business session of the NCAA convention in his state of the association speech.

Schools will receive warning reports in early February that let them know which of their teams fall below the Academic Progress Rate.

This is part one in a three part series on collegiate sports and academics.

–The Associated Press contributed to this story