Future of Division III

[Ron Boerger]

Wesleyan is moving to the NAIA.

No, not that Wesleyan, the other one.

https://www.naia.org/general/2025-26/Releases/Fall25-New-Members

It's interesting that this women's school that supports 4.5 sports now (beach VB is the half) not only is looking forward to offering athletic scholarships (per their own release) but is going to add more sports (flag FB, wrestling, cheer).  Their enrollment in 2025, per the school's own overview, was "approximately 506 undergraduates"; US News reported 595 two years ago, so this is likely at least partially an attempt to bolster sagging numbers.  Their financials are in decent shape for a small school with net assets slightly increasing over the past decade and a light long-term debt load. 

That said, athletes make up a relatively small proportion of overall enrollment, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 participating on varsity rosters (I did not attempt to dedup the 84 names listed).  To be honest, I didn't even know this was a D3 institution, or that you could participate in D3 with so few sports offerings.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I didn't even know this was a D3 institution, or that you could participate in D3 with so few sports offerings.

That could be why they're leaving.  I'm not going to take the time to go back through the membership committee minutes, but maybe there was a waiver denial in there that forced their hand?

[ziggy]

I didn't even know this was a D3 institution, or that you could participate in D3 with so few sports offerings.

That could be why they're leaving.  I'm not going to take the time to go back through the membership committee minutes, but maybe there was a waiver denial in there that forced their hand?

They were granted a waiver request for cross country per the Membership Committee minutes from the August 2024 meeting. I notice this particular sport is absent from the list mentioned in the NAIA release. Whether actually forcing their hand or just one factor in the decision (it doesn't appear another waiver request was made), it does seem you are on the right track here.

[Ralph Turner]

There is a certain "panache" to the student-athlete, sitting at a table for the photo-op in the local newspaper, announcing that she is attending an "NAIA" Wesleyan College on an "athletic scholarship", if only for a dollar amount equivalent to "books and fees" and probably less than the academic package she would have received at a "D3" Wesleyan.

[Gregory Sager]

Wesleyan is moving to the NAIA.

No, not that Wesleyan, the other one.

https://www.naia.org/general/2025-26/Releases/Fall25-New-Members

It's interesting that this women's school that supports 4.5 sports now (beach VB is the half) not only is looking forward to offering athletic scholarships (per their own release) but is going to add more sports (flag FB, wrestling, cheer).  Their enrollment in 2025, per the school's own overview, was "approximately 506 undergraduates"; US News reported 595 two years ago, so this is likely at least partially an attempt to bolster sagging numbers.  Their financials are in decent shape for a small school with net assets slightly increasing over the past decade and a light long-term debt load. 

That said, athletes make up a relatively small proportion of overall enrollment, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 participating on varsity rosters (I did not attempt to dedup the 84 names listed).  To be honest, I didn't even know this was a D3 institution, or that you could participate in D3 with so few sports offerings.

I didn't realize that women's colleges were using the same add-sports-programs-to-bolster-admissions playbook that coed schools have been using in D3 and NAIA. I doubt that wrestling is going to do much for Wesleyan in that regard, but flag football and cheer could be good lures for a significant number of students.

I didn't even know this was a D3 institution, or that you could participate in D3 with so few sports offerings.

That could be why they're leaving.  I'm not going to take the time to go back through the membership committee minutes, but maybe there was a waiver denial in there that forced their hand?

They were granted a waiver request for cross country per the Membership Committee minutes from the August 2024 meeting. I notice this particular sport is absent from the list mentioned in the NAIA release. Whether actually forcing their hand or just one factor in the decision (it doesn't appear another waiver request was made), it does seem you are on the right track here.

Three thoughts:

1) I doubt that Wesleyan is switching affiliations for travel reasons. The NAIA league it's joining, the SSAC, is spread out all across the Deep South, so I doubt that the mileage totals for Wesleyan teams will be much different.

2) Cross-country is the cheapest sport of all for a school to offer. The only expenses are the coach's salary (and you can always give the job to a part-timer), team travel, entry fees, and uniforms. That's why Wesleyan needing to request a waiver for cross-country seems so counterintuitive; cross-country is typically a sport that tiny or cash-strapped schools rely upon to help qualify for offered-sport minimum requirements, rather than a more expensive or hard-to-field sport that may force the school to submit a waiver request to the NCAA.

3) I can't imagine that it would've been an insurmountable barrier for Wesleyan to keep applying for NCAA cross-country waivers for another couple seasons before either women's wrestling or women's flag football, or both, become NCAA-sanctioned sports. Given the explosive growth of both sports among D3 members, it's gotta happen very soon.

[Ron Boerger]

Women's wrestling will become an NCAA sport next season (approved in January).  But the wheels were probably already in motion before that decision was made. 

[Ron Boerger]

CNBC focuses on college enrollment challenges in the current environment:  'A perfect storm' — more colleges at risk as enrollment falls and financial pressures mount

Closures and mergers are looming "at a pace we haven't seen since the Great Recession," said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education.

The warning lights have been flashing for years. Fewer high school graduates are enrolling in college and the overall population of college-age students is shrinking, a trend experts refer to as the "demographic cliff."

...

And now, international student enrollment is poised to drop off due to the Trump administration's tougher visa rules and anti-immigrant policies, representing billions of dollars in lost tuition and stripping away one of higher ed's most reliable financial lifelines.

Add deep federal funding cuts, and the sector faces what Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, calls "a perfect storm."

The article focuses primarily on the impact of fewer international students studying in the US, noting that most pay full tuition and thus subsidize those who don't.  Wolfson states "[d]eclining international student enrollment is a piece of the larger puzzle undermining the financial health of higher education.  What we are going to see is programs shut down, campuses shut down, smaller public or private institutions closing or merging and a curtailment of opportunities for our students."  The article notes that larger colleges and/or those with substantial financial resources will not be as subject to these issues, with one person observing "top schools are really bulletproof."

Finally, making this (even more) relevant to D3, Southwestern [TX] president Laura Trombley is quoted at the end, saying "[w]e are carefully monitoring all of our expenses, but we also know the next few years are going to be tough...[y]ou have levers to pull, but you don't have that many levers".

[y_jack_lok]

Top schools may be bulletproof from the standpoint of survival, but Wash U is cutting 300 jobs and not filling 200 vacancies as a result of cuts to research funding. https://www.firstalert4.com/2025/10/01/washington-university-announces-more-than-300-job-cuts-elimination-job-openings/

Southwestern is my wife's alma mater.

[WUPHF]

And now, international student enrollment is poised to drop off due to the Trump administration's tougher visa rules and anti-immigrant policies, representing billions of dollars in lost tuition and stripping away one of higher ed's most reliable financial lifelines.

For Division III, the impact will vary from school to school.

Hope College will barely notice the change while Trine, a school that enrolls 7,000-10,000 international students in low cost, low quality Masters programs at locations in Detroit and elsewhere better prepare for the impact.

[ziggy]

"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

 College decisions are made based on a number of factors: academics, finances(public vs private; merit vs income aid; commuting vs room & board), student body size, prestige, and, for the athletes, program success; separation of D3 athletics into tiers of philosophy will largely depend on what proportion of that decision should be allocated to athletics vs all the other factors.

Whenever these kinds of statements and comments get out, I think it has less to do with the future of DIII and more to do with that particular institution's future in DIII.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

"We don't want students who make college decisions based on athletics and we don't want to compete against schools who accept students who make college decisions based on athletics."

That's the vibe I get from a lot of places.

 College decisions are made based on a number of factors: academics, finances(public vs private; merit vs income aid; commuting vs room & board), student body size, prestige, and, for the athletes, program success; separation of D3 athletics into tiers of philosophy will largely depend on what proportion of that decision should be allocated to athletics vs all the other factors.

Whenever these kinds of statements and comments get out, I think it has less to do with the future of DIII and more to do with that particular institution's future in DIII.

I think that's true, but there also aren't really great alternatives.  I can certainly feel for folks who've seen the division slowly move away from what it was.  I also think this is why there has been and will always be a "Division IV" rumor out there, even if it's not likely to come to fruition.