Division I

Division I athletics have guidelines that help ensure academic success and fairness across member schools in the form of financial aid award rules. Each school must offer the minimum number of financial aid awards to student-athletes while being careful not to exceed the cap established to ensure fair competition.

For a particular school to be classified as a Division I member, it must meet a minimum number of sponsored sports for both men and women—seven for both men and women, or six for men, and eight for women. In addition, each Division I athletic program also requires a minimum participation commitment, varying by sport.

More specifically, for each sport, other than football and basketball, Division I schools must play a specified number of contests against Division I opponents with 50 percent of any additional games coming against Division I opponents as well. Men's and women's basketball teams must play all but two games against Division I teams, and men must play one-third of all their contests in the home arena.

Schools that have football are classified as Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) or NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). FBS football schools are usually fairly elaborate programs whose football teams must meet minimum attendance requirements (average 15,000 people in actual or paid attendance per home game), which must be met once in a rolling two-year period. FCS teams do not need to meet minimum attendance requirements.