A small university with a heavy investment in intercollegiate athletics shutters its sports programs
A small university with a heavy investment in intercollegiate athletics shutters its sports programs
Concordia University Ann Arbor, with 80% athletes, drops athletics
According to its 2022-23 Equity in Athletics Disclosure report, Concordia University Ann Arbor, an NAIA school, enrolled 812 students during that year. Six hundred fifty-two of them - equivalent to 80% of the student body - were athletes spread across 27 sports. Those athletes received $3,926,080 in athletic-related student aid. In that same report, the university disclosed $9,221,117 in total athletics expenses.
Last week, facing a $9 million structural deficit, the same amount as the athletics budget, the Concordia Ann Arbor administration and board announced the Cardinals will cease sponsoring all sports after the upcoming 2024-25 season.
For comparison, Presbyterian College in South Carolina, one of the smallest schools to compete at the NCAA Division I level with just 873 undergraduates, reported $12,175,117 in 2022-23 expenses for 446 athletes (51% of its student body) across 19 sports. Concordia Ann Arbor, an NAIA school, was not too far removed, financially, from being equivalent to a Division I school that last year beat SEC power Vanderbilt in men’s basketball. According to the most recent (and incomplete) USA Today NCAA Finances database, Concordia Ann Arbor spent more than nine Division I schools.
To the university’s credit, it has been remarkably transparent over the past several months with its communications about its financial struggles, identifying enrollment and financial challenges over the past decade severe enough to precipitate a 2013 merger with Concordia University-Wisconsin, an NCAA Division III institution in Mequon, Wis.
The Concordia University system encompasses six campuses - Ann Arbor (CUAA), Wisconsin (CUW), Chicago (CUC), Irvine (CUI), Nebraska (CUNE), St. Paul (CSP) - with varying degrees of athletic emphasis. CUI and CSP compete in NCAA Division II, while CUC and CUW compete in Division III and CAA and CUNE in the NAIA. All of the campuses report robust athletic offerings but the two NAIA campuses - Ann Arbor and Nebraska - are heavily reliant on athletes as students, 80% and 63%, respectively. A snapshot of the Concordia campuses is below.
That heavy emphasis on athletics by the Ann Arbor campus was purposeful. The CUAA Task Force report dated May 31, 2024 and available on the CUAA website, is explicit in what transpired, and how athletics contributed to the financial deficit.
The plan worked, until it didn’t.
Would CUAA have benefitted from transitioning to NCAA Division III where athletic grants-in-aid are prohibited (the NAIA permits athletic scholarships)? Possibly. We know Division III institutions have a history of increasing sport offerings.
CUAA’s operating partner, CU-Wisconsin, competes at the Division III level. CUAA distributed $3.9 million in athletic-related student aid in 2022-23, 42.6% of its overall athletic expenses. For comparison, CUW reported $3,539,320 in total athletic expenses for 627 athletes, 32% of its student body.
Of course, CUW likely discounts its tuition through merit scholarships and other forms of financial aid, so it is probable a portion of that $3.9 million CUAA spent would be shifted to another part of the university’s balance sheet.
Most alarming to me, is how this purposeful pivot to athletics at CUAA did not work out. When I was interviewed for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s special report titled, “The Athletics Advantage: How intercollegiate sports can rejuvenate D-III colleges” published earlier this year, I expressed concern over the strategy of adding sports to drive enrollment. While CUAA is NAIA and not Division III, many of the underlying fundamental aspects of their operations are similar.
“Institutions need both athletes and nonathletes in order to operate. The criticism of D-I is that students pay fees that go to athletics. In some respects, D-III is doing the same thing by bringing non-athletes to campus and having their tuition dollars go into the same pot as the athletes’ and getting its operating budget out of that pot.” - as quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education
I was subsequently interviewed by Forbes and Inside Higher Ed regarding the same topic. I have been consistent in my caution regarding using sports to “rejuvenate” small colleges. There increasingly seems to be a tipping point when the percentage of athletes on a campus exceeds the percentage of non-athletes.
Consider the fates of the following seven small colleges, all of which have recently announced closure and have high percentages of athletes as students.
Notre Dame College (Div. II) = 65% of 939 total students (closing summer 2024)
Fontbonne University (Div. III) = 63% of 612 total students (closing in summer 2025)
Birmingham-Southern College (Div. III) = 47% of 962 total students (closing in summer 2024)
Wells College (Div. III) = 44% of 346 total students (closing in summer 2024)
University of Saint Katherine (NAIA) = 94% of 190 total students (closing in summer 2024)
University of Antelope Valley (NAIA) = 46% of 453 total students (closed in spring 2024)
College of Saint Rose (Div. II) = 27% of 1,371 total students (closing in summer 2024)
Each of the schools with fewer than 1,000 total students had 44 percent or more of its student enrollment as athletes (data from the Equity in Athletics Disclosure (EADA) site).
Three other small schools have resorted to drastic measures to stay open for the 2024-25 academic year:
Clarks Summit University (Div. III) = 48% of 269 total students
Northland College (Div. III) = 45% of 502 total students
Keystone College (Div. III) = 40% of 811 total students
Again, these schools are at, or near, the 44 percent figure.
Not included in the above list is Alverno College in Wisconsin, an NCAA Division III school. The all-women’s Catholic liberal arts college declared financial exigency on June 14, 2024, allowing the university to discontinue a number of degree programs and layoff faculty and staff. Sports, however, were largely spared as only the track and field program, with a roster of six athletes, was discontinued. According to the EADA site, just 10% of Alverno’s 582 students were athletes. Clearly, financial challenges can impact universities of all shapes and sizes.
Can we conclude definitively there is a direct cause-and-effect between a university’s financial difficulties and having 44% or more of the student body as athletes? No, of course not. Aa myriad of variables can contribute to a university’s financial challenges. But it does seem safe to say there is a relationship there, and that merely adding sports in an attempt to grow enrollment may not be the savior administrators hope it will be.