Saint Francis University, a small private Catholic university in Loretto, Pa., will move from Division I to Division III, according to a campus announcement Tuesday. The move reflects the difficult financial reality facing college athletic programs amid a series of recent rule changes.
“The driver for us is the student-athlete experience,” said Saint Francis’s president, the Very Rev. Malachi Van Tassell. “We’re one of the smallest if not the smallest school in Division I.”
That tier, the highest in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, is a harsh place for small colleges without the money to invest heavily in athletics. Athletes can now transfer between colleges easily and frequently, making it more competitive to keep players and recruit new ones. Van Tassell said that soon after the transfer-rule changes were made several years ago, half of Saint Francis’s men’s basketball team transferred, and he knew he was in a new era.
“We have become a farm team for the bigger programs,” he said. Saint Francis has fewer than 2,000 students.
Athletes are also now able to make money off their name, image, and likeness. Van Tassell cited a headline from this year announcing excitedly that a college with zero NIL dollars — Saint Francis — had made it to March Madness. What followed was a positive story about the men’s basketball team, but it was not exactly good publicity from a recruiting standpoint. Van Tassell said Saint Francis athletes can now land big NIL deals if they leave for other colleges.
“That’s just not us,” he said. “That’s not our donor base.”
Saint Francis will move from the Northeast Conference to the Presidents’ Athletic Conference in the 2026-27 academic year, so it has one more year as a Division I institution. In the 2028-29 academic year, athletes will no longer be able to receive athletic scholarships while also maintaining their athletic-competition eligibility. If athletes choose to keep their athletic scholarship for the 2028-29 academic year, they will not be able to participate in athletic competitions.
The institutions in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference are in or relatively close to western Pennsylvania, compared with the Northeast Conference, which includes colleges in Chicago and Massachusetts. Van Tassell said he wanted athletes to have a good quality of life and not have to travel long distances each week in order to compete.
Another big change is about to set in for college athletics. Next month, colleges expect a federal judge to approve a settlement in a significant antitrust case, known as House v. NCAA. If the settlement is approved, the most competitive athletic programs will be allowed to pay their athletes starting in July. In the first year, the amount they can give athletes will top out at $20.5 million, but it will increase in subsequent years.
All Division I colleges will have the choice to opt in to this settlement, and some have already announced that they plan to do so. Though colleges do not have to share the full $20.5 million with their players, there will be pressure to devote some funds to athletes, adding to the already growing expenses associated with running a Division I program.
Van Tassell said conversations about moving to Division III pre-dated the House settlement, but as the details of the settlement came into view, it was a factor in the decision. The college’s board ultimately made the decision to transition to Division III.
For athletes and athletic-department staff, the news will be a shock, Van Tassell said. He made the announcement to them Tuesday morning and will spend the next few days meeting with athletes to help them understand what the change will mean for them.
“This is truly a culture shift,” the president said.
Saint Francis plans to keep all the sports it currently offers and may add some. Van Tassell said he also hopes the athletic-department staff will all decide to stay, though he understands that some may want to transfer to a Division I program.
