Guide
What FCS means on this page
FCS is the Football Championship Subdivision. A school is on this page when its football division is FCS. In this file every FCS row is also NCAA Division I. The page is still a football list, not the full Division I list.
The FBS page is the other Division I football group. A Division I college with no football team is on the Division I page and off both football pages. The table sorts by state. It is not a poll and not a bracket.
- Schools
- 130
- States
- 39
- Median admit rate
- 77%
- 127 report a rate
- Median earnings
- $55,835
- 10 years after entry
The football division field
The Equity in Athletics feed stores FBS and FCS as football divisions. This page keeps FCS. It does not keep a school because fans call the program championship-level, and it does not drop a school because a season went badly. The field is the test.
Conference pages elsewhere on the site are narrower. A Big Sky or Patriot League or SWAC football school is FCS in this file and also has a conference string. This page ignores the conference name and keeps every FCS row.
Division I schools that are not FCS
An FBS school stays on the FBS page. An independent FBS school stays there too. Notre Dame is the example readers know: its football conference is Division I-A Independents, and its football division is FBS, so it is not here.
Division II and Division III football use other labels in the football-division field. They are not FCS. A school with no football team has an empty football division and stays off, even when the athletics division says NCAA Division I.
Read the college, not the seed
Enrollment and admission rate describe the institution. A smaller FCS college can be more selective than a larger one. Nothing on this page converts those figures into a playoff seed. Wins are not in the Scorecard.
Price and earnings below are medians for the colleges that report them. They are a poor way to judge a football roster and a fair way to compare the campuses. Open a profile for net price.
One cut of Division I football
The site splits Division I football into FBS and FCS because the file does. It also keeps a single Division I colleges page for every Division I member, with or without football. Use the page that matches the question.
Conference realignment changes some of these rows over time. This page follows the football division, not a frozen list of traditional FCS leagues. A school that moves to FBS leaves this page when the field changes.
Where the schools are
These schools sit in 39 states. The largest groups are New York (9), Pennsylvania (9), Texas (9), North Carolina (7), and Louisiana (6). The rest of the roll is spread across the other states in the table.
Who runs them
By reported control, 78 are public and 52 are private nonprofit. A blank control stays out of that split.
Predominant degree is the credential the campus awards most often. On this list it is a bachelor's degree at 128 schools, an associate degree at 1 school, and a certificate at 1 school. A campus can still award other credentials.
How large they are
The largest undergraduate enrollments on this list are Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, with 41,254 undergraduates, University of California-Davis in Davis, California, with 32,253 undergraduates, California State University-Sacramento in Sacramento, California, with 28,350 undergraduates, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, with 22,903 undergraduates, and California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo in San Luis Obispo, California, with 21,996 undergraduates. Enrollment is the undergraduate figure. It is not a ranking, and it leaves out graduate students.
Admission
127 of 130 schools report an admission rate. The median of those rates is 77%. Schools with no reported rate stay out of the median. A missing rate is not an open door, and it is not a closed one.
The lowest reported admission rates on this list are Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at 4%, Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, at 4%, and Columbia University in the City of New York in New York, New York, at 4%. A lower rate is harder entry. It is not a score for the school.
The highest reported admission rates on this list are Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, at 99%, University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota, at 99%, and South Dakota State University in Brookings, South Dakota, at 98%.
What they charge
Among 78 public colleges that report an in-state sticker price, the median is $10,025. Among 52 private colleges that report a sticker price, the median is $52,939.
Sticker price is not net price. Grants, waivers, and a service commitment can move the bill by a wide margin. Open a school for the net-price figures.
Earnings and graduation
Among 130 schools that report earnings, the median of those school-level medians is $55,835. The clock starts at entry, not at graduation. The highest reported medians on this list are University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at $111,371, Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey, at $110,066, and Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at $105,584.
Among 130 schools that report a graduation rate, the median rate is 60%. A blank rate is left out. It is not treated as zero.
Also on other lists
Some of these schools also meet the rule for another list on this site. The overlap is a second flag or a second classification. It is not a second ranking.
18 are also on R1 research universities. 33 are also on R2 research universities. 11 are also on liberal arts colleges. 21 are also on HBCU colleges. 11 are also on Hispanic-serving institutions.
How these figures work
Admission rate, enrollment, sticker price, earnings, and graduation rate all come from the College Scorecard. Earnings are the median 10 years after a student entered the school. Tuition for a public college is the in-state sticker price. Tuition for a private college is the published sticker price. None of these is net price after aid.
A blank field stays blank. This page does not turn a blank admission rate into an open door, a blank fee into a free application, or a blank earnings figure into zero. The table above is membership under the rule in this guide. Sort order is not a quality ranking.