This article reports that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has penalized fewer teams than it expected this year over athletes' poor academic performance. For years, officials with the NCAA have predicted that strikingly high numbers of college sports teams could be at risk of losing scholarships this year because of their athletes' poor performance in the classroom. Last week, when the NCAA released its fourth annual report measuring how much progress athletes are making toward completing their degrees, the number of teams penalized represented just over 3 percent of the more than 6,000 programs in Division I--only a slight increase from last year, and far less than the dire predictions. More than 700 teams performed so poorly in the classroom that they earned academic-progress scores below the benchmark figure at which penalties come into play. Only 218 teams, from 123 different institutions, will face sanctions. Of those, 174 will lose scholarships, while 44 will receive a public warning. The NCAA's president, Myles Brand, and other officials attributed the lower number of penalized teams to institutions' quick progress in improving the academic performance of athletes. The NCAA also takes other factors into account before applying penalties, including the level of resources an institution has and whether a coaching change has taken place. The report looks at a measurement called the Academic Progress Rate, which the NCAA developed four years ago as a way to gauge how much progress college athletes were making toward their degrees and how well they were performing in the classroom.