@Zoom 2020 posted:Many, if not most, of the small LACs that are not Top 20 academically ranked are already constantly facing financial pressures prior to Covid due to their small endowments, and heavy reliance on tuition (and tuition discounting) to meet their annual net revenues while meeting enrollment targets. Going forward, some of these LACs will be forced to close and many others will need to find areas to cut expenses including sports.
For the Top 20 academic LACs like Williams, Amherst, etc., their larger endowments and overall desirability will somewhat insulate them from pure financial pressures to cut sports, but they are facing the same institutional pressures that Stanford and the Ivys are facing as to how they want the composition of their study body to look like going forward. As the pressure ramps up to maintain their academic prestige and increase diversity while facing a demographic cliff of smaller graduating high school classes over the next few decades, I predict these high academic LACs will follow the Ivys and also begin cutting down on the number of sports they offer.
I think that the pressure on the top 20 LACs might be like Dartmouth, I agree they might cut some sports on the same model. Many others, with fewer applicants, depend on sports to bring in students, so they actually have incentive to keep or expand them.