NEWS: NCAA Unanimously Votes to Approve "Five-In-Five" Age-Based Eligibility Rules

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Written by Aimee Morganti, edits & additional commentary via Garrett Zatlin

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Earlier today, the NCAA Division One Cabinet unanimously voted to approve an age-based eligibility model, starting this fall. The new eligibility model will be based around a "five-in-five" rule where an NCAA athlete has a five-year window to use five years of athletic eligibility at the collegiate level.

The start of a student-athlete’s five-year eligibility clock would begin during the first regular academic year after the athlete has graduated from high school OR at the start of the academic calendar year after an athlete has turned 19 years old.

The NCAA would use the earliest of those two time points to determine when an athlete’s five-year eligibility window starts. The vote is not expected to be official until the conclusion of the meeting on Wednesday.

In an announcement from last month that encouraged the NCAA Division One Cabinet to adopt the new eligibility model, Tim Sands, the Division One Chair of the Board, stated...

“The time is now to reform the period of eligibility rules to provide Division I student-athletes and our schools clear and consistent standards that align with current college athletes’ experiences.”

Athletes whose fourth season of athletic eligibility was completed at the conclusion of the 2026 academic year will NOT be granted an additional year of eligibility.

Lawsuits are expected to stem from the NCAA choosing not to give an additional year of eligibility to athletes who just completed their four years of competition.

There are also guidelines in place for athletes with eligibility still remaining. Schools will have the flexibility to apply the new age-based model or continue with the previous eligibility rules (four seasons to compete with five total years of eligibility). Whichever option is most beneficial to that individual can be applied.

The NCAA's newest "five-in-five" eligibility model means that an athlete will not be limited to four seasons of competition in their five-year window. As such, the concept of "redshirting" has effectively been removed, entirely.

The adoption of this new eligibility model will also eliminate waivers, including those that restored used seasons such as medical hardship and other types of waivers that extended certain periods of eligibility.

However, the NCAA has said that it will accept waiver requests from current student-athletes who may be eligible for hardship waivers or extensions of eligibility until July 31st of this year.

Last month, the NCAA stated that this would provide tighter and clearer defined exceptions to eligibility. Allowances are expected to be made for pregnancy, active-duty military service and religious missions.

Implementation of the "five-in-five" eligibility model includes removing the current delayed enrollment rules, which is intended to simplify the eligibility process.

The phrase "delayed enrollment" is defined as, "After your expected date of high school graduation (Divisions I and II) or actual date of high school graduation (Division III), you have a certain amount of time (grace period) to continue sports participation before initially enrolling full time at any two- or four-year college or university," per the NCAA.