I took this off the D2 Football Message Board. This is the clusterf..k college football has become. Many FCS and mid-Major schools can't afford these changes. This was someone talking about some of them looking to drop to D2 to avoid these changes. I've been saying this for the last couple years. The worst outcome of all of this is they are going to start axing other men's sports. My understanding is that the SEC and other conferences are already capping roster sizes under the NCAA limits to shore up money, so you are seeing kids not getting scholarships renewed in other sports as well.
The money isn't there for most schools. A major split is coming in college football. The chasm between the haves and have nots financially is too great for sustainability in this new world. You can see why the old guard of coaches are retiring in droves across the NCAA.
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1. Each FCS school is having to pay its share of the House Settlement amount, which is $2-3 million per FCS school. That's a killer.
2. Scholarship limits have increased by 20 scholarships for football. It is presumed that this is for FCS as well, If a school is fully funded, that's another $450K "expense" for the school, minimum, in FCS.
3. Because scholarships have increased for football, they will also have to be increased on the women's sports side to satisfy Title IX. Scholarships must be set according to male-female enrollment ratios, according to federal law. Should football or baseball programs provide scholarships up to the roster limit, they must be offset by providing the same number of additional scholarships for female sports or reducing scholarships from the pool of other men’s sports. That could lead to some campuses eliminating men’s sports or perhaps adding new women’s teams. For example, volleyball has gone from 12 to 18 scholarships. A number of FCS schools already have a bare minimum number of women's sports. So, sports may have to be added in order to have those extra football scholarships. That's also more money for coaches, travel, etc.
4. For football, rosters are now limited to 105. Many FCS schools are carrying up to 150 - with a chunk of those being tuition and fees payors. With the new roster limits, that could be a loss of 45 tuition-paying athletes. About a $900K loss in revenue on average per FCS school.
5. Declining enrollments at most schools. Like D2 and D3, FCS programs are funded by student fees. Very little of the athletics budget comes from ticket sales and sponsorships - 10 percent or less usually. Most universities are experiencing flat to declining enrollments due to the "Enrollment Cliff" effect. You can do a Google search for that term for more information. So while costs are rising dramatically, revenues are going to tend to be flat to declining.
6. Tuition and fees freezes. To help combat the rising costs of education, some states, including Texas, have issued a tuition and fees freeze for the next two years. That's a good thing for tuition payors, but a huge problem for athletics programs that are already financially struggling. They can't necessarily raise student fees to make up for shortfalls.
D2 has some built in safeguards that are going to become increasingly attractive to FCS programs that are sinking financially, including no roster limits, and comparatively low scholarship limits."
