The NCAA’s age-based eligibility model has passed.
On Tuesday, the NCAA’s Division 1 cabinet unanimously voted to approve the model that’s been described as the “5-in-5” rule. The change now gives Div. 1 athletes five full seasons of eligibility in a strict five-year window in their chosen sport, with their eligibility clock beginning upon initial college enrollment or the academic year following their 19th birthday, whichever comes first. It will go into effect beginning in the 2027-28 season.
These landmark changes are aiming to improve the overall health of college sports, especially in basketball where waivers and exceptions have allowed some athletes to play seven, eight or even nine seasons. But there are also ripple effects of the rule that will impact prep school basketball and high school recruiting.
Here are five initial takeaways from the new age-based eligibility model.
Postgraduate seasons will retain their value
Under the first framework of this proposal, the eligibility clock would have begun the academic year after the athlete’s 19th birthday or high school graduation, whichever came first. That framework directly threatened the value of postgraduate seasons, which have been critical in New England prep schools for decades. For many recruits, a postgraduate season would have burned one of their five seasons of college eligibility, because postgraduate years come right after high school graduation.
But in early June, the NCAA made an important modification to the proposal. Now, the eligibility clock begins upon college enrollment or the academic year following an athlete’s 19th birthday, whichever comes first. Under that framework, the majority of postgraduates can now play that season without worrying about losing a year of college eligibility.
An important eligibility clock clarification
In my analysis earlier this month on why the aforementioned rule modification was a win for postgraduates, I raised the question that it wasn’t clear yet on when a prospect needed to turn 19 by to avoid losing a year of college eligibility. We have that answer now.
Per the NCAA, the age-based trigger comes on Sept. 1. If the athlete’s 19th birthday comes before Sept. 1, then that immediate following season would count towards their five years of eligibility. If their 19th birthday comes on or after Sept. 1, the eligibility clock wouldn’t start until the following year. For example, if a prospect’s 19th birthday comes in August, then they do a postgraduate year, the postgraduate year counts towards their five years of college eligibility.
Another way to think about it: An athlete needs to still be 19 years old when they start college to preserve their five years of eligibility.
More opportunities for high school recruits?
One of the ultimate outcomes of this rule change is that older college athletes – 26-year-olds on their seventh or eighth seasons of eligibility – should be weeded out of the system. It’s a hard cap on five college seasons and you’re done. In theory, that should help create more scholarship opportunities for high school prospects, because there will be fewer of those older players maintaining eligibility.
There is also the revenue-sharing rule from the NCAA vs. House settlement that will allow schools to opt into creating more scholarship spots on their roster. That would force college coaches to take a longer look at high school recruits to help fill out the back end of their rosters, too.
Because college coaches will still prioritize building their rosters through the transfer portal, it will still be difficult for high school recruits to earn a spot at the Division 1 level. But age-based eligibility rule should help take it in the right direction.
Recruits and families need to be informed
The road to playing college basketball is unique for every high school prospect. As Williston Northampton coach Ben Farmer told me, recruits and families just need to be educated and informed about how the decisions they make could affect them in the future.
Repeating eighth grade years – a common practice among recruits looking to gain an edge in recruiting – will likely become less common, because adding years could cost them a year of college eligibility down the road. Unless they’re very young, the decision to reclassify will need to be taken seriously – not that it wasn’t serious before, but there are now potential disadvantages. Families need to do the math about when their son or daughter turns 19 and how decisions leading up to that could affect their college eligibility. Prep school coaches need to closely monitor all the information, too.
"It's our job as coaches to know the rules and what’s going on out there,” Farmer said. “I think our job is to provide all the information, provide the knowledge and then families have to make decisions that are in the best interest of their child and their families, and we need to look at date of births very closely now when we’re recruiting, to project. If a kid turns 19 in his junior year, we need to look at that.”
How will this impact the transfer portal?
The elephant in the room is that while this age-based eligibility rule is a step in the right direction for the health of the sport, the rules about college players getting unlimited transfers without sitting out a year remain the same. How this rule change will affect transfer activity in college basketball? My initial sense is that it may even increase – because players will want to maximize their opportunities to earn NIL, especially with an additional fifth year of eligibility. The trickle-down effect on high school prospects will likely remain the same – college coaches will prioritize those experienced players in the transfer portal and less of an emphasis on evaluating and recruiting high school players.
“It's impacting my home here,” Wilbraham & Monson coach Mike Mannix said on the NCAA transfer portal. “Because guys can transfer an unlimited amount of times, schools come into our gym in the fall to evaluate and they’re there and we’re appreciative that they’re getting eyes on our players but a lot are saying, we won’t really know until the spring, because we have to wait for the portal and see who we can get. That just shouldn’t be the way.”
