NCAA Division I Board of Directors Grant Waiver
The NJCAA became aware today of the NCAA Division I Board of Directors granting a waiver to permit student-athletes who attended and competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years to remain eligible and compete in 2025-26 if those student-athletes would have otherwise used their final season of competition during the 2024-25 academic year, and meet all other eligibility requirements (e.g., progress toward degree, five-year period of eligibility). This is currently a temporary waiver that only applies to those student-athletes that meet the stated criteria to compete in 2025-26.
The Division I Board of Directors and Division I Council authorized a comprehensive eligibility review in June of 2024. The intent of that review is to create an eligibility framework that will be sustainable and can withstand scrutiny. That review already resulted in action to modernize collegiate sports. The review includes all aspects of student-athlete eligibility, and Division I is committed to advancing the discussion during the upcoming January governance meetings.
The NJCAA understands that communicating and working collaboratively will create a proactive environment to support all student-athletes in a positive manner. We will welcome any opportunity to take part in discussions that impact the thousands of student-athletes that go from the NJCAA to the NCAA on a yearly basis. We all bear the responsibility to support them, while facilitating the ease of their transferability. The NJCAA simply wants to do this by creating rules and objectives that meet those standards of being sustainable and without scrutiny from start to finish.
As Always, Opportunities Starts Here!