St Francis College, Brooklyn, Eliminating D1 Sports

[ochoopsfan]

Accordingly, the Board of Trustees recently approved a strategic realignment plan which includes the elimination of the College’s NCAA Division I athletics program, effective at the conclusion of the Spring 2023 semester.

St Francis plays in the NEC Conference

St. Francis College Restructures to Advance "SFC Forward," COO Tim…

A message from Denis J. Salamone '75, Chair of the St. Francis College Board of Trustees

www.sfc.edu

 

[nwhoopfan]

May not be the last school to make this decision.

 

[Nyskier]

I remember walking by their campus when I lived in Brooklyn Heights. This is a really small school, so this is not a surprise.

 

[Dublin]

So why did they not decide to step down to Division II or III, like the University of Hartford did. Of course, I have no idea what operating expenses are like for Division II or III teams.

 

[sun]

This article ncludes the names of some schools that may be candidates to join the NEC.

NEC will likely see expansion after shock St. Francis decision

St. Francis exited the college sports world Monday in shocking fashion. Which means the NEC will get conference realignment cranking again.

elitesportsny.com

And this is the NEC news release about the conference intending to proceed with expansion efforts.

Statement From Commissioner Noreen Morris Regarding St. Francis College Eliminating Its Intercollegiate Athletics Program

Statement from NEC Commissioner Noreen Morris on St. Francis Brooklyn eliminating its intercollegiate athletic program at the conclusion of the 2022-23 academic year:

northeastconference.org

So why did they not decide to step down to Division II or III, like the University of Hartford did. Of course, I have no idea what operating expenses are like for Division II or III teams.

The OP article mentioned that they built a new custom facility which must be expensive, and there being a smaller pool of high school graduates due to the pandemic.

21 teams with staff & travel & facility maintenance costs must be too excessive for the small school to absorb.
If their operating margin is too small there's no benefit for them to continue sports.

 

[sun]

Stonehill College previously announced that they were joining the NEC beginning in 2022-2023 as part of a 4 year transition process to Div. 1 which gives them 8 member schools currently.

Stonehill Announces Transition to NCAA Division I for 2022-23 Academic Year

EASTON, Mass. (April 5, 2022) – Stonehill College has accepted an invitation from the Northeast Conference’s (NEC) Council of Presidents and will begin a transition to offer NCAA Division I athletics starting with the 2022-23 academic year, it was announced today by Stonehill College President...

www.stonehillskyhawks.com

 

[azfan]

Schools dropping sports and closing is not only not surprising but a trend that will most certainly accelerate. Sortable list of colleges that either drop sports programs or have closed entirely:

The List: College Athletic Programs Cutting Sports & Schools Closing - HoopDirt

The college athletics landscape has seen some significant changes over the past few months, due in large part to the COVID-19 pandemic. The original intent of our list was to track all of the suspensions, cuts, and closing in the college athletics world. With most fall sports now suspended, our...

hoopdirt.com

Factors that will accelerate this trend:

1. College enrollment is declining.

"In 2022, 4 million fewer people in America enrolled at a college than ten years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the decline in US college enrolment, with a 10% decrease in sign-ups."

US college enrolment is dropping, can this be reversed? | World Economic Forum

2. College tuition continues to increase.


The average annual cost of tuition at a public 4-year college* is 37 times higher than tuition in 1963.

College Tuition Inflation [2023]: Rate Increase Statistics.

3. Point one above is a result of both point 2 above and demographic shifts.

4. Closed Colleges: List, Statistics, and Major Closures | BestColleges

 

[TheFarmFan]

May not be the last school to make this decision.

Understatement of the millennium. This trend will pick up steam regardless, but if the plaintiffs in either (or both) of the NIL and/or student-athletes-are-employees class action suits prevail, the long term future of college athletics as we know it will be in serious peril. It's not at all unrealistic to think that in about 10 years there could be roughly two 20-team super conferences that constitute the entirety of recruited, full-athletic-scholarship D1 collegiate athletics.

 

[azfan]

Understatement of the millennium. This trend will pick up steam regardless, but if the plaintiffs in either (or both) of the NIL and/or student-athletes-are-employees class action suits prevail, the long term future of college athletics as we know it will be in serious peril. It's not at all unrealistic to think that in about 10 years there could be roughly two 20-team super conferences that constitute the entirety of recruited, full-athletic-scholarship D1 collegiate athletics.

Well said. College football is well down this path. Non revenue sports, by their nature, in an environment of stressed small/ medium sized private colleges and state underfunded colleges are endangered.

Analysis finds hundreds of colleges show serious financial warning signs

To examine how institutions are positioned to respond to such a crisis, The Hechinger Report created a Financial Fitness Tracker.

hechingerreport.org

• The problems were not evenly spread among states. Combined, Ohio and Illinois have more than 10 percent of all the institutions potentially facing trouble. Ohio has 36 institutions with two or more warning signs. Illinois has 26.
• Roughly 1,360 colleges and universities have seen declines in first-year fall enrollment since 2009, including about 800 four-year institutions.
• Nearly 30 percent of all four-year schools brought in less tuition revenue per student in 2017-18 than in 2009-10.
• About 700 public campuses received less in state and local appropriations in 2017-18 than in 2009-10, and about 190 private four-year institutions saw the size of their endowments fall relative to their costs.

One Third Of Private 4-Year Colleges Are At High Risk Financially, Model Predicts

A model developed by Boston startup Edmit finds that more than a third of private four-year colleges in the United States are at a high risk financially.

"Many colleges will be able to help students find ways to survive this crisis, but others will need to make the incredibly difficult decision to seek a merger or close in the next few years," co-founder Nick Ducoff said.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Understatement of the millennium. This trend will pick up steam regardless, but if the plaintiffs in either (or both) of the NIL and/or student-athletes-are-employees class action suits prevail, the long term future of college athletics as we know it will be in serious peril. It's not at all unrealistic to think that in about 10 years there could be roughly two 20-team super conferences that constitute the entirety of recruited, full-athletic-scholarship D1 collegiate athletics.

I kinda feel like the frog sitting in the pot as the water slowly reaches the boiling point around me. If these predictions are true, I think at some point this froggy will jump out and just quit following college athletics.

 

[azfan]

Stanford

Men's + Women's Fencing, Field Hockey, Lightweight Rowing, Men's Rowing, Co-ed and Women's Sailing, Squash, Synchronized Swimming, Men's Volleyball, Wrestling (all will be discontinued after 20-21 school year)

Colleges are eliminating sports teams – and runners and golfers are paying more of a price than football or basketball players

Shutting down sports teams can save schools millions of dollars but create longer-term challenges for enrollment, fundraising and campus life.

theconversation.com

As professors who study higher education, we took a closer look at the 300 teams that were dropped between March and October 2020 by 78 colleges and universities.

It’s a diverse group of institutions. Some – like Stanford and Brown – have multibillion-dollar endowments. They compete in the NCAA’s Division I, which is the top level of college sports.

 

[Ozimoto]

My sister, who was the Dean of Arts and Sciences at a small, liberal arts women's "university" and who was involved with the accreditation process, said that the current system of college education is unsustainable. And this was pre-Covid. The costs of a college education and the return on investment of a college education (unless you are looking at technical fields that some academic purists refer to as "vocational training" which are majors not in keeping with the mission of a university) puts traditional liberal arts colleges in real jeopardy.
In such an atmosphere, the cost of college sports and the resources they require, are easy targets when costs need to be cut. The exceptions are schools where there is healthy financial backing from alumni. Most schools cannot rely on that.

 

[MSSportsGuy]

Many small, private colleges simply cannot keep up with the costs to operate an institution when they suffer enrollment loses. While students often pay far less than the advertised sticker price they are still cost prohibitive for some when tuition is less at a state university, which even those have become more costly.

I tend to think at some point in the future there will be a break off for the P5 and a few other schools who have deep pockets and known athletic pedigree and those will be the schools that have full athletic programs.