Permanent 5 years of eligibility?

[Kuiper]

Jon Rothstein, a college basketball reporter for CBS Sports, is reporting that the NCAA is considering allowing 5 years of eligibility in all sports.

This isn't breaking news though.  Ross Dellinger of Yahoo Sports reported earlier this fall that this was under consideration.

Here is what was reported earlier this fall:

Member schools plan to seriously consider granting athletes in all sports, not just football, the ability to participate in up to a certain percentage of games in a fifth season and still use their redshirt.

The potential changes are part of what is expected to be a year-long comprehensive review of NCAA athlete-eligibility rules to reflect and operationalize the House settlement terms, according to documents obtained by Yahoo Sports. The documents will be reviewed this coming week during a video call of the NCAA Division I Council.

Recommendations and approval of the athlete-eligibility rules are expected to occur on a rolling basis and be presented to the DI Council for consideration at regular quarterly meetings through October 2025.

That description sounds like an adjustment to the redshirt rule, rather than a blanket 5th year, and since DIII doesn't have a redshirt rule (and has a pretty restrictive injury rule), it presumably wouldn't apply to DIII.  Nevertheless, with judicial rulings and political changes altering the landscape significantly over the last few months, it's possible that they are considering a 5th year of eligibility that is both broader (not requiring a redshirt or a modified redshirt for a limited number of games played) and applies to all divisions, similar to the Covid rule.

DIII observers are taking this seriously, with DIII college basketball podcast host Bob Quillman arguing that this would create a have and have-nots for DIII schools based on whether they offer grad programs.

This would permanently create a non-level playing field in D3 between schools with and without grad programs.  It's been one thing to have this in the 4 yrs after the pandemic...but wow.

I really hope @NCAADIII thinks long and hard about the implications here.

I'm not so sure that University Administrators of DIII schools would look at it the way Bob does.  I think they are already looking at a shortfall in enrollment with the demographic cliff and they would seriously consider anything that keeps students around and paying tuition for 5 rather than 4 years as an opportunity.  Unlike with the Covid year, which was clearly temporary, I think in a long-term rule change schools would pursue ways to capture that extra revenue, whether by starting some grad programs, partnering with other universities on grad programs where they could take classes at the home institution during the semester in which they play their sport and at the grad institution in the other semester (or even a model like the Claremont Graduate University, which is the graduate program for all of the schools in the Claremont consortium), or creating revenue-generating, non-degree earning, study abroad, public service, or externship options that they could do for a semester or more while formally being withdrawn from school and then coming back to finish up their last semester of coursework while playing the last season of their sport (some schools already do these things in the Fall with students who are offered Spring semester starts their freshman year).  Many of those options could be structured either in a way that avoids the extra burden on campus housing and infrastructure from having more students on campus at any given time, while still providing schools some revenue (share of fees) while they are away doing other things or in a way that keeps the students on campus to fill up otherwise empty dorms and instead permits the grad work or non-degree earning work to be done remotely or nearby.

By the way, some of this already happened under Covid 5th year rules.  I know players at schools without grad programs who took off a semester (either during Covid or at some later point) and worked, often in internships in their expected field, so they could come back and play a 5th season.  They sometimes weren't identified as 5th years or grad students, so you wouldn't know if you didn't know the player/team or didn't look at their stats/bio on the website.

[Kuiper]

Here is more commentary from Wooster professor Drew Pasteur on the possibility of DIII going along with a 5th year

Last January, the D3 membership voted to retain language about D3 athletics being primarily a four-year undergraduate experience, even after the NCAA D3 Management Council had proposed dropping it.

However, the potential for 5th year tuition + room/board might sway the majority.

I think his last point, coming from inside the academy, underscores my point about how academic administrators might view a 5th year differently than fans

[Ron Boerger]

The question with the "fifth year tuition/room/board" argument, for schools lacking graduate options, is this:  you require "X" credit hours to get an undergraduate degree.  I don't think most students are looking to take and pay for X * 1.25 hours just to play sports for five years at the D3 level.  So you're not going to realize a full "fifth year" worth of revenue, plus schools will have to continue offering financial aid (aka tuition discounts) to keep students there.  And, if you're not taking a full course load, maybe you're also not living on campus that fifth year.

[Kuiper]

The question with the "fifth year tuition/room/board" argument, for schools lacking graduate options, is this:  you require "X" credit hours to get an undergraduate degree.  I don't think most students are looking to take and pay for X * 1.25 hours just to play sports for five years at the D3 level.  So you're not going to realize a full "fifth year" worth of revenue, plus schools will have to continue offering financial aid (aka tuition discounts) to keep students there.  And, if you're not taking a full course load, maybe you're also not living on campus that fifth year.

I think the workaround option students have used in Covid years doesn't make schools money because they simply withdraw from school for a semester.  Same with just slow-playing a kid's school by lowering the minimum number of credits per semester to be full-time (although you might make back some money from housing and other fees if they stayed enrolled the whole time). 

My prediction is that tuition-dependent colleges that are already using sports to attract undergraduates would use sports to generate other types of revenue if they were given the chance. If they have grad programs, they would use sports to attract students to those or add ones to do so.  If they don't have grad programs and it's not economical to add some, they would find ways to share fees with schools that can offer grad programs or get fees for non-degree options, such as externship placements (offering supervision) or public service/travel abroad experiences (the latter two providing value-added for existing students to extend their stay and their payments).  I've already seen some D1 schools enroll post-BA students in new grad programs to allow them to be eligible for extra years.  I'm not saying they necessarily created the new grad programs for the express purpose of supporting their sports teams (there probably aren't enough athletes to sustain that), but it definitely helps justify those programs.

[IC798891]

I don't think most students are looking to take and pay for X * 1.25 hours just to play sports for five years at the D3 level.  So you're not going to realize a full "fifth year" worth of revenue, plus schools will have to continue offering financial aid (aka tuition discounts) to keep students there.

I feel like COVID basically functioned as a proof of concept for this idea already. I suspect an overwhelming majority of 5th year players did not pause their undergraduate academic pursuits. The schools probably have a sense already of the % of student-athletes who would have no problem taking on a 5th year of college financially.

Unless they make a rule that your 5th year has to be graduate school, I could see this opening up multiple options for student-athletes.

Usually, a "full-time" student is anyone taking at least 12 credits a semester. Which means you can be a full-time student and take 12 credits a semester for 10 semesters (Instead of the more traditional 15 credits per 8 semesters) and still come away with, for lack of a better word, a typical, 120-credit degree. And that reduced course load might make sense for someone with an additional significant time commitment. There's only so many hours in a day, and maybe I'm naive in thinking this is how they will do it, maybe the lack of a 5th class to attend/study for will allow students to study more for their 4 remaining classes, improving their academic performance.

We could also see them use that extra year to complete an additional minor. Or you could decide you're going for a 5th year right away and structure your course load in a way to make a double major realistic, especially if you're already coming into college with credits from AP classes.

Again, maybe I'm naive, but I think this actually opens up a lot of beneficial academic paths for athletes whose families can afford a 5th year. And hey, if not, go ahead and graduate the same way you would have before