The NCAA recently changed its guidelines on eligibility for student-athletes at the Division I level. For the entirety of the modern NCAA, the law of the land was this: every athlete gets four years of eligibility. Clean. Simple. It maintains a fair playing field. You don’t have athletes hanging around in college long past their time, just so they can beat up on freshman. Except, that is exactly what happened. 

Schools like BYU would use two year mission trips to stretch four years of eligibility into six years. Power 5 schools utilized redshirt rules so their freshmen could take their first year off from competition and come back for a fifth year as more fully developed athletes. In both cases, the athletes may have only competed for four seasons, but they had more time for additional training and maturing physically. 

The examples of exceptions to the four-year rule go on and on. This past summer the NCAA decided it was time to put an end to the exceptions. According to NCAA.org the new rule states that Division I athletes have five years of eligibility and five years to complete it, as long as they enroll the year after their 19th birthday. After an athlete’s 19th birthday, the five year clock starts ticking regardless of their enrollment status.

This alleviates some of the workload of administrators who previously had to understand and apply complicated eligibility rules. It also adapts athletics to a changing college experience. More students are seeking master’s degrees or nontraditional educational timelines. Extending a fifth year allows student-athletes more freedom in their education. This freedom was once only afforded to only those with the resources available to them. Giving it to all Division I students helps to level the playing field and address the disparities between Power 5 schools and everyone else.

This change will also have implications for the other divisions. In January, the NCAA will host its annual convention where legislators gather and vote on major changes. Divisions II and III will have to decide whether they want to follow suit, stay the course, or choose a new path for their eligibility model. Regardless of their decision there will be trickle-down impacts from the Division I change.

Nontraditional students who want to participate in athletics but have been aged out of Division I will be forced into the other divisions. This could result in a greater number of high-level international student-athletes ending up in Divisions II and III.Power 5 schools, for example, have a history of recruiting older athletes from outside of the U.S to compete in cross country and track. These athletes would now have no pathway to Division I and would need to compete in Divisions II or III. The change to eligibility could also result in changes to roster size at Division I programs, pushing even more athletes to the other divisions. 

This change is just the most recent in a rapidly evolving era for collegiate athletics. Giving student-athletes the right to their Name Image and Likeness has seemingly opened Pandora’s box. More changes are bound to come, their effects are unknown. One thing is certain, the era of 6th and 7th year seniors competing against true freshmen is over.