Texas Southern president: Small schools need help

Published May. 15, 2014 7:17 p.m. ET

foxsports

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) Texas Southern University President Dr. John Rudley says smaller schools ''are severely handicapped'' by limited resources and need help from the NCAA.

Six Southwestern Athletic Conference schools could face postseason bans from the latest Academic Progress Rates, released on Wednesday. That includes half of the league's football programs and all of Southern's teams because of questions about the school's APR data.

Rudley, the chairman of the SWAC Council of Presidents and Chancellors, says historically black colleges and universities have graduation rates of 36 percent for all students.

He says the standard of a 50 percent graduation rate for athletes ''is set so high that most HBCU's and other limited resource institutions cannot meet that standard.''

Last year, 15 programs among seven schools were penalized.