Regional Colleges Lag on Women's Participation
From The Chronicle of Higher Education - June 18, 2004
By WELCH SUGGS

In the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Division II occupies a middle ground. Its members do not want to have athletics programs on the scale of Division I, but they want to offer scholarships and play at a higher level than most Division III institutions do.

Division II colleges are, by and large, regional colleges that serve specific communities -- for example, Adams State College, in Alamosa, Colo., and Ouachita Baptist University, in Arkadelphia, Ark. They enroll as few as 500 students and as many as 30,000 or more, averaging almost 6,000.

In Division II, women's participation in sports lagged significantly behind men's in 2002-3. Women accounted for slightly less than 40 percent of varsity athletes, the lowest percentage of any category of institution save two-year colleges. Women's teams received 41 percent of spending on sports and 42 percent of scholarship budgets.

Division II colleges varied widely in the size and scope of their women's sports programs. At nine institutions, all in the South or Midwest, less than 25 percent of athletes were women. Ten colleges, all in the Northeast or Upper Midwest, had at least 10 women's teams and at least 45 percent of athletes were female, even though their proportions of female students were all much higher.

At only five Division II institutions were least 45 percent of the athletes female, even though all but 29 of the 282 colleges that reported said they had more female than male students.

At 11 colleges, women's teams received less than 25 percent of operating budgets for athletics. However, 57 Division II institutions reported spending at least half of their athletics budgets on women's teams.

A number of Division II institutions have migrated from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics in the past 20 years, seeking better championship opportunities and health insurance for their athletes.