... schools starting the upgrade process to move up to Division I. The stated reason was to reconsider the rules a school will follow to become or remain a member of Division I.

In the past, the NCAA has tried to use other criteria to force financially underperforming universities down to a less expensive level of competition.

In the 1990s, the NCAA insisted any schools who wanted to play football at the IA (now called FBS) level had to have a stadium that seated 30,000. A number of schools proceeded to gather funds to do costly stadium upgrades to 30,000. In many cases, like Buffalo, EMU, and UNT, these stadium uprgades had the net result of discouraging fan attendance. Several schools were forced to drop football.

In the 2000s, th...

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