NCAA Scholarship Limits: House Settlement, Roster Caps, and Opt-Ins

NCAA scholarship limits changed fundamentally on July 1, 2025. Division I schools that opt into the House v. NCAA settlement no longer follow sport-specific scholarship caps. Instead, they follow roster limits, and every athlete on the roster can receive a scholarship, full or partial. Schools that decline to opt in continue to operate under the old per-sport scholarship caps from the 2024-25 Division I Manual.

The Old Scholarship Caps Still Binding on Opt-Out Schools

Before the settlement, Division I divided sports into two categories. Headcount sports counted any athlete receiving athletic aid as a full scholarship against the team’s limit, so a quarter-tuition grant used the same slot as a full ride. Coaches in those sports almost always offered full scholarships rather than waste a counter on a partial award.

Equivalency sports worked differently. The NCAA set a maximum number of full-scholarship equivalencies that a coach could divide across a much larger group. A baseball coach with 11.7 equivalencies could stretch partial aid across 25 or more players.

The caps that governed Division I for years, and that still apply to any school that has not opted into the settlement, include:

FBS football: 85 full scholarships (headcount)
FCS football: 63 equivalencies
Men’s basketball: 13 (headcount)
Women’s basketball: 15 (headcount)
Women’s volleyball: 12 (headcount)
Women’s gymnastics: 12 (headcount)
Women’s tennis: 8 (headcount)
Baseball: 11.7 equivalencies
Softball: 12 equivalencies
Men’s ice hockey: 18 equivalencies
Women’s soccer: 14 equivalencies

Conferences could impose stricter internal caps, and schools that exceeded NCAA limits faced penalties that included the loss of future scholarship slots or postseason bans.

What the House Settlement Changed

Judge Claudia Wilken granted final approval of the House v. NCAA settlement on June 6, 2025, and the Division I Board of Directors formally adopted the new rules effective July 1, 2025.¹ For opt-in schools, two changes rewired the scholarship system.

First, sport-specific scholarship limits no longer exist. Every rostered player is eligible for a scholarship, whether partial or full. A football program with 105 rostered athletes can fund all 105, something that was impossible under the 85-scholarship cap.

Second, opt-in schools can distribute up to $20.5 million per year directly to athletes from broadcast and ticket revenue, on top of scholarship aid. That cap rises 4 percent annually, reaching roughly $21.3 million for 2026-27, and gets re-evaluated every three years over the settlement’s ten-year term.

The settlement also earmarks roughly $2.8 billion in back damages for athletes who competed between 2016 and 2024, paid out over ten years at about $280 million annually.² A group of female athletes appealed the back-pay allocation to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals shortly after final approval, arguing the formula violates Title IX. Those distributions remain paused while the appeal is pending.

New Roster Limits by Sport

The caps below apply to every Division I school that opts into the settlement. Every athlete within these caps can now be offered a scholarship:

Football: 105
Men’s basketball: 15
Women’s basketball: 15
Baseball: 34
Softball: 25
Men’s soccer: 28
Women’s soccer: 28
Men’s lacrosse: 48
Women’s lacrosse: 38
Men’s ice hockey: 26
Women’s ice hockey: 26
Volleyball (men’s and women’s): 18
Wrestling: 30
Swimming and diving (men’s and women’s): 30
Track and field (men’s and women’s): 45
Gymnastics (men’s and women’s): 20
Men’s golf: 9
Women’s golf: 9
Tennis (men’s and women’s): 10

Other NCAA-sponsored sports have their own caps, ranging from 11 for women’s bowling to 68 for women’s rowing. Fall sports must be at or below the roster limit by the day before their first contest that counts toward championship selection; winter and spring sports face a December 1 compliance deadline or the day before their first qualifying contest, whichever comes first.³

What Roster Caps Mean for Walk-Ons

Under the old system, FBS football programs carried 85 scholarship players alongside a large group of walk-ons, often pushing rosters past 120. The 105-player roster cap changes that math. Schools can still roster a non-scholarship athlete, since walk-ons are not banned, but every spot now counts against the cap. When a program can fund all 105 slots with scholarship players, there is little incentive to give a roster spot to someone who is not receiving aid.

The squeeze is tighter in smaller sports. Men’s golf sits at nine. Tennis at ten. At those numbers, walk-on opportunities have essentially disappeared for participating schools. Track and field at 45, swimming at 30, and baseball at 34 offer slightly more room, but coaches are more likely to fill every slot with a recruited, funded athlete than to leave scholarship dollars unused.

Schools That Don’t Opt In

Participation in the settlement is voluntary. Schools that decline continue to follow the old scholarship caps and remain prohibited from making direct revenue-sharing payments to athletes.

There is a tripwire built into the settlement. Any school that provides payments or benefits beyond what the old Division I Manual allows is automatically treated as having opted in, and becomes subject to every settlement restriction, including roster caps. Selective adoption is not an option.

Multidivisional institutions, meaning schools that are primarily Division II or III but sponsor one or more Division I sports, can opt in for their Division I programs only. The roster limits and revenue-sharing rules apply to those Division I teams, while the school’s other sports continue under their division’s existing rules.²

Division II and Division III

The settlement does not apply to Division II or Division III. Division II operates on a partial-scholarship model where every sport uses the equivalency method. Totals are lower than Division I: men’s basketball gets 10 equivalencies rather than the 13 full scholarships allowed under the old Division I headcount rules, and baseball sits at 9 equivalencies rather than 11.7.⁴ Athletes are expected to combine athletic aid with academic grants, need-based awards, and outside financial aid.

Division III prohibits all financial aid based on athletic ability, leadership, or participation in sports. Athletes at Division III schools access the same need-based and merit-based packages available to any other student, processed through the standard FAFSA application.⁵ A Division III school that sponsors a Division I sport can opt in for that team specifically, but the rest of its programs remain under Division III rules.