NAIA Financial Aid

You create an athletics program to fit your mission and budget 

The NAIA is the only intercollegiate athletics association focused on serving its membership through common-sense regulations where financial aid, eligibility and competition rules are fair, flexible and less burdensome to administer, and institutions have the autonomy to administer athletics as they see fit.

Financial Aid
In the NAIA, each sport has an upper limit for the amount of institutional aid allowed per school. The school may choose to divide the scholarships among student-athletes*, so long as the total does not exceed the limit for the sport. Limits for each sport are as follows:

* The total amount of scholarship money a team has available is equal to (the average cost of attendance at the school) multiplied by (the above limit for scholarships). The team/athletic department may then divide that total amount of money amongst varsity team members however it chooses. For example, if the average cost of attendance per year is $10,000 at an NAIA school, then the tennis team would have $50,000 total to distribute to varsity tennis players. One player may be taking an overload of classes, and the total cost of attendance for that player is $12,000. If the team wanted to give that player a full-ride, the player would cost the team the equivalent of 1.2 of total tennis scholarships. Or, the team could decide to provide 10 varsity players with flat scholarships of $5,000 each.

Institutional aid is considered anything funded, controlled or allocated by the institution, regardless of its original source (e.g., private scholarships, athletic scholarships, academic scholarships and work study count toward team aid limits). However, academically gifted students can be exempted from these limits if they meet GPA or test score criteria established by the NAIA. Those criteria include: 

  Continuing students with a 3.6 cumulative GPA or who are in the top 10% of their class (100% of aid exempt)
 
  Continuing students with a 3.3 – 3.59 cumulative GPA or who are in the upper 11% - 25% of their class (50% of aid exempt)
 
  Aid to entering freshmen exempt if the student achieves one of the following:

• For tests taken prior to May 2019: 1130 SAT or 23 ACT = 50% of aid exempt; 1270 SAT or 27 ACT = 100% of aid exempt; For tests taken May 2019 or after: 1140 SAT or 23 ACT = 50% of aid exempt; 1280 SAT or 27 ACT = 100% of aid exempt; or 
   
• Cumulative high school GPA of 3.50 – 3.74 = 50% of aid exempt; 3.75 – 4.0 = 100% of aid exempt; or
   
• High school class rank in the top 11% - 25% = 50% of aid exempt

Multi-sport athletes will automatically have their aid equally divided by the number of sports in which they compete.