National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Overview
• Established 65+ years
• NAIA offers athletic scholarships, unlike DIII schools.
• NAIA is a separate association/governing body of colleges who compete in intercollegiate athletics; similar to how the NCAA governs DI, DII, and DII
• Typically smaller schools
• More than 50,000 student-athletes participating in NAIA
• 300 member colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada.
• 25 conferences and the Association of Independent Institutions, 13 sports
• Many NAIA programs are located in the Midwest although schools can be found across the US.
• In some sports, NAIA offers more scholarships than NCAA DI or DII programs
• It is up to the individual program to decide if they will fund certain sports. Always ask the NAIA coach how many scholarships are available in your sport. “Do you have a fully-funded program?”
• NAIA schools create financial aid packages similar to DII schools. In some cases NAIA provide 4 year packages for the athlete.
• Very often they give generous academic scholarships and grants
• Typically will provide partial scholarships