Understanding the factors that influence student-athlete enrollment is fundamental to achieving recruitment goals. This is especially true at NAIA institutions, where, on average, student-athletes make up 20 percent of undergraduate populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the spring of 2024, the NAIA sought to further explore the key determinants of student-athletes\u2019 enrollment decisions by surveying current NAIA student-athletes. Participants were asked to rank a series of factors related to the institution \u2014 athletics, academics, coaching, finances, and the influence of friends\/family \u2014 on a scale from one to five, with one indicating that the factor was “not important at all” in their decision to enroll and five indicating it was “extremely important.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Based on those responses, here are the top five factors influencing NAIA student-athlete enrollment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Athletic Scholarship (4.16):<\/strong> Earning an athletic scholarship represents the ultimate goal for many student-athletes. Athletic scholarships assist with the affordability of higher education and demonstrate that an institution values the athletic contributions of a student-athlete. This is particularly important to transfer students (4.20), who rated athletic scholarships slightly higher than non-transfers (4.15).<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Preferred Program\/Major Offered (4.15):<\/strong> Preferred program\/major offered is nearly tied for the top spot with athletic scholarship, showing that NAIA student-athletes value academic offerings as much as athletics. Although rated higher among women (4.27) than men (3.98), most NAIA student-athletes prioritize finding an institution that offers the right program\/major for them and their desired vocation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Opportunity to Play (4.04):<\/strong> NAIA student-athletes are motivated to make meaningful contributions to their teams, and ensured playing time is important in their enrollment decisions. Although opportunity to play is highly regarded among all student-athletes, transfer students (4.06) tended to prioritize it slightly more than non-transfers (4.04), suggesting that it is an important selling point of their next institutional pick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. Financial Aid Received (3.97) & 5. Affordability (3.92):<\/strong> As higher education costs intensify, student-athletes continue to be conscious about their financial decisions. Both the financial aid received and an institution\u2019s general affordability increase the likelihood of enrollment for all student-athletes. That said, these factors are especially important for first-generation student-athletes (financial aid received: 4.31 and affordability: 4.03), who typically face more prohibitive costs and increased barriers when navigating the financial aid process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Understanding the factors that influence student-athlete enrollment is fundamental to achieving recruitment goals. This is especially true at NAIA institutions, where, on average, student-athletes make up 20 percent of undergraduate populations. In the spring of 2024, the NAIA sought to further explore the key determinants of student-athletes\u2019 enrollment decisions by surveying current NAIA student-athletes. Participants […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[191,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-return-on-athletics","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/the_top_five_factors_influencing_student_athlete_enrollment-600x400.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/the_top_five_factors_influencing_student_athlete_enrollment-600x600.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Ally Hecht","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/author\/ahecht\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/the_top_five_factors_influencing_student_athlete_enrollment.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ueXi-mq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.naia.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}