Another D1 program bites the dust

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Hartford University going from D1 to D3 in all sports. COVID impact related. Ouch. Feel bad for the kids but in essence another option for D1 Women’s soccer will be off the board. Apparently quite a few more colleges are feeling the effects of COVID on budgets. The football schools should be ok but worrisome situation for mid majors.

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Hartford University going from D1 to D3 in all sports. COVID impact related. Ouch. Feel bad for the kids but in essence another option for D1 Women’s soccer will be off the board. Apparently quite a few more colleges are feeling the effects of COVID on budgets. The football schools should be ok but worrisome situation for mid majors.

Great news!

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Hartford? Another liberal woke school is a Dem run straight can’t make ends meet. Shocker

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Hartford? Another liberal woke school is a Dem run straight can’t make ends meet. Shocker

Failed attempt at trying to make everything political. It's a small school like many others that got slammed by Covid, but many of these smaller barely known schools were already pinched before last year. With school costing so much families want to make sure their investment has a better shot at paying off. Applications at top schools were growing while others were flat, even down some. That was amplified even more this year. Many had already started big cost cutting measures, slashing staff and even professors. Cutting athletic costs makes a great deal of sense at a school like this. They certainly weren't getting big basketball or football money to help support non revenue sports. Other schools have started cutting some teams, but I bet in the next 1-2 years more will try this D3 move

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Failed attempt at trying to make everything political. It's a small school like many others that got slammed by Covid, but many of these smaller barely known schools were already pinched before last year. With school costing so much families want to make sure their investment has a better shot at paying off. Applications at top schools were growing while others were flat, even down some. That was amplified even more this year. Many had already started big cost cutting measures, slashing staff and even professors. Cutting athletic costs makes a great deal of sense at a school like this. They certainly weren't getting big basketball or football money to help support non revenue sports. Other schools have started cutting some teams, but I bet in the next 1-2 years more will try this D3 move

Tons of chatter from other similar schools worried they may follow a similar path. What will that mean for soccer athletes with D1 aspirations? Already low 1-2% chance getting even lower?

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Tons of chatter from other similar schools worried they may follow a similar path. What will that mean for soccer athletes with D1 aspirations? Already low 1-2% chance getting even lower?

If your kid only plays HS the they have a 1-2% chance. Academy is much, much higher and even higher still the higher up the ladder your club/academy is.

What this will do, if more lower end D1s drop to D2/D3, is going to drop the number of D1 commitments clubs/academies get to post about.

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Tons of chatter from other similar schools worried they may follow a similar path. What will that mean for soccer athletes with D1 aspirations? Already low 1-2% chance getting even lower?

This will prob drop that % to less then 1%. Sobering statistic to consider. Sad that Covid is having this negative impact on collegiate sports and making something that was hard to achieve even harder.

[Unregistered]

Failed attempt at trying to make everything political. It's a small school like many others that got slammed by Covid, but many of these smaller barely known schools were already pinched before last year. With school costing so much families want to make sure their investment has a better shot at paying off. Applications at top schools were growing while others were flat, even down some. That was amplified even more this year. Many had already started big cost cutting measures, slashing staff and even professors. Cutting athletic costs makes a great deal of sense at a school like this. They certainly weren't getting big basketball or football money to help support non revenue sports. Other schools have started cutting some teams, but I bet in the next 1-2 years more will try this D3 move

Very good analysis and this is the hard choices many small colleges are making because of Covid. Athletics are a big part of college life that attracts student-athletes to a college like Hartford. Moving to D3 is a great alternative depending on the conference that accepts them. Small colleges do not have a big revenue sport to sustain the entire athletic programs so this was a hard decision but a smart decision that is a good compromise. Because of the “lost year” teams were able to compete at D1 because of the money they saved from not having any Spring sports in 2020. Going forward for the classes of 2022 it will feel the “pinch” because with the extra year of eligibility more schools are keeping the “core” Senior players this fall and will do the same with the Juniors as well for a 5th year. That will effect future commitments starting in 2022. For 2021 this fall most colleges are adding on more walk ons or lessor scholarship dollars because of the 5th year Seniors.

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Very good analysis and this is the hard choices many small colleges are making because of Covid. Athletics are a big part of college life that attracts student-athletes to a college like Hartford. Moving to D3 is a great alternative depending on the conference that accepts them. Small colleges do not have a big revenue sport to sustain the entire athletic programs so this was a hard decision but a smart decision that is a good compromise. Because of the “lost year” teams were able to compete at D1 because of the money they saved from not having any Spring sports in 2020. Going forward for the classes of 2022 it will feel the “pinch” because with the extra year of eligibility more schools are keeping the “core” Senior players this fall and will do the same with the Juniors as well for a 5th year. That will effect future commitments starting in 2022. For 2021 this fall most colleges are adding on more walk ons or lessor scholarship dollars because of the 5th year Seniors.

We are the Shore #matchfitfamily

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This will prob drop that % to less then 1%. Sobering statistic to consider. Sad that Covid is having this negative impact on collegiate sports and making something that was hard to achieve even harder.

These debates were going on well before Covid. In light of astronomical costs of attendance more schools and students were already questioning the role of athletics on some campuses. Isn't going to college supposed to be about the education? D3 or even just club athletics make a ton of sense for many smaller D1 programs. Brown cut several teams and made them club sports. Stanford cut several sports too. Those are schools with huge endowments but also have academic reputations they want to protect also.

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If your kid only plays HS the they have a 1-2% chance. Academy is much, much higher and even higher still the higher up the ladder your club/academy is.

What this will do, if more lower end D1s drop to D2/D3, is going to drop the number of D1 commitments clubs/academies get to post about.

Plenty of soccer families don't care as much about the D1 status but the academic status. Getting some D1 dollars to play is great, but many soccer families can afford college without that. What they love is leveraging soccer to get into a better school than they could without sports.

But, what does come into question is if you're not chasing the D1 dream, do you need to play in a costly national league to play D3? Right now you largely don't. If this gradual shift at the college level leads to more regionalized/local play at lower costs? That's good for soccer. The sport was already losing too many players due to cost and travel.

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Plenty of soccer families don't care as much about the D1 status but the academic status. Getting some D1 dollars to play is great, but many soccer families can afford college without that. What they love is leveraging soccer to get into a better school than they could without sports.

But, what does come into question is if you're not chasing the D1 dream, do you need to play in a costly national league to play D3? Right now you largely don't. If this gradual shift at the college level leads to more regionalized/local play at lower costs? That's good for soccer. The sport was already losing too many players due to cost and travel.

Yes. I hope this change is one of those making youth soccer landscape healthy again. Right now it is just all about $$$.

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If your kid only plays HS the they have a 1-2% chance. Academy is much, much higher and even higher still the higher up the ladder your club/academy is.

What this will do, if more lower end D1s drop to D2/D3, is going to drop the number of D1 commitments clubs/academies get to post about.

No. The 1-2% number is the percentage of HS soccer players that go on to play college. That includes players who play club in addition to HS soccer. The percentage of players who only play HS is pretty much zero.

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Plenty of soccer families don't care as much about the D1 status but the academic status. Getting some D1 dollars to play is great, but many soccer families can afford college without that. What they love is leveraging soccer to get into a better school than they could without sports.

But, what does come into question is if you're not chasing the D1 dream, do you need to play in a costly national league to play D3? Right now you largely don't. If this gradual shift at the college level leads to more regionalized/local play at lower costs? That's good for soccer. The sport was already losing too many players due to cost and travel.

Agree with your first paragraph.

For the second, the strong academic D3 schools (eg. Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Williams, Tufts, Swarthmore, etc) will attract high level players with good academic records. If you look at their rosters, they definitely have a good number of ECNL/DA players. Those players with the combination of strong academic performance and soccer ability aren't looking at TCNJ or Montclair State; they are looking for top-tier colleges. As a result, there are more players from top-tier leagues trying to get into those schools than there are slots, so it's a buyer's market for those soccer programs. I'll agree that if you want TCNJ or Montclair State that you probably don't need ECNL/GAL or other costly national league.

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Plenty of soccer families don't care as much about the D1 status but the academic status. Getting some D1 dollars to play is great, but many soccer families can afford college without that. What they love is leveraging soccer to get into a better school than they could without sports.

But, what does come into question is if you're not chasing the D1 dream, do you need to play in a costly national league to play D3? Right now you largely don't. If this gradual shift at the college level leads to more regionalized/local play at lower costs? That's good for soccer. The sport was already losing too many players due to cost and travel.

So so true and long overdue shift which hopefully removes the pay to play model. With percentages around 1-2% it’s insane to spend all this $ and time.