One year ago many Georgia fans were certain that a bidding war had broken out for college football recruits and UGA would be marginalized because of its bottom-of-the-league cost of attendance (CoI) payments to student athletes. Thankfully, the sky has not fallen.
 
 
There were dire predictions galore last year. Many fans were convinced that student-athletes would only look for the highest bidder – checkbook recruiting would be the only thing that mattered once CoI became reality. In fact, CoI has been a non-issue.
 
 

Georgia made some “very creative” changes, former coach Mark Richt said last summer, to raise its cost of attendance, above and above tuition & fees and room & board, from $2,598 to $3,221 for in-state students last off-season.
 
Alabama also saw jumps in its figures, which increased by 20 percent for in-state and 39 percent for out-of-state students, resulting in a move from near the bottom of the league to No. 3 behind only Tennessee and Auburn.
 
Even those sudden increases to federal-regulated calculations did not have any lasting concerns within the SEC.
 
“Probably the fact that this is the first cost of attendance conversation I’ve had this week is an indication that it worked well,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said during the conference’s Spring Meetings two weeks ago. “We did exactly what we said from a transparency standpoint.”

 
 
http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2016/06/year_later_cost_of_attendance_impact_sec_recruiting.html