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📕 Today in the D3Playbook. America’s College Financial Grades. Behind Wesleyan’s Rise. Is NIL Dead? Middlebury’s Adams Tops IWLCA All-America Team

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“It’s a mess,” says veteran college finance expert Lucie Lapovsky, referring to the state of higher education in the United States. There is a near perfect storm of challenges facing private universities and colleges: the pool of high school graduates is shrinking, international student enrollment is off nearly 20% and in the inflationary, post-Covid environment, an increasing number of middle and lower income families are choosing more affordable state schools or opting out of college altogether. If that weren’t challenging enough, uncertainty over artificial intelligence and the future of the workplace has university leadership grasping at an array of strategies.

Forbes annual College Financial Grades assesses the financial health of more than 900 private not-for-profit colleges with enrollment of more than 500 students. For 2026, Forbes has revamped its analysis, thanks to novel data from Perspective Data Science, which zeroes in on colleges' true liquidity. Our ranking shows a stark disparity among private colleges. While the elite selective schools, with grades of A+ and A remain healthy and strong, a large number of colleges with near open admissions policies and sagging enrollment are on life support. Nearly half of the colleges we graded scored C or worse. Even more alarming, 27% of the institutions received our lowest grade of D, and many were found to be plundering their endowments to survive.”

“At the end of Christine Kemp’s interview for Wesleyan’s head field hockey coaching job, Director of Athletics Michael Whalen ’83 asked whether she thought the program could win.

“Think we could get an AstroTurf?” she replied.

Before accepting the athletic director job in 2010, Whalen had asked University President Michael Roth ’78 a broader version of that same question: Was Wesleyan willing to build the conditions winning required? He was coming from Williams, where, as the head football coach, he had gone 32–8 over the last five seasons and seen what it looked like when a NESCAC program had the backing to win. Wesleyan asked for excellence in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Whalen wanted to know whether Wesleyan was ready to give athletics that kind of backing.”

» Situational Awareness. “The systems that helped build the rest of Wesleyan had never been pointed at athletics. Admissions had to understand what coaches were seeing in recruits, and development had to see teams as part of the fundraising picture. Admissions came first. In the NESCAC, where teams cannot offer scholarships and academic standards are non-negotiable, the admissions office can determine what kind of program a coach is allowed to build. Whalen calls the relationship a “lifeline” and says he works to make it mutual.”

» Why It Matters. “The academic process held, but athletics also became a larger part of the class. Admissions told the Argus that in 2015, the four-year trailing average of varsity athletes as a percentage of the first-year class was 20.8. In 2025, that average was 25.8%. During that time period, the entering class size also grew from 756 in 2012 to 830 in 2025. Athletes entering grew from 157 to 214, accounting for 77% of the overall increase. With quantity came quality.”

» Yes, But. “Annual gifts help coaches cover immediate needs, but they have to be renewed each year. Endowment money is invested, allowed to compound, and paid out over time, giving programs a more stable source of support. Even with that growing emphasis on fundraising, the broader numbers complicate the idea that Wesleyan simply spent its way up the league. Federal Equity in Athletics data show that Wesleyan’s self-reported expenses rose from $4.25 million to $9.56 million from 2010 to 2023, a 125% increase. But inside the NESCAC, that growth was not unusual. Wesleyan ranked 6th of the 11 NESCAC schools in percentage expense growth, below the conference mean.”

» The Final Word. “The athletic problem at Wesleyan used to be that the school’s idea of excellence stopped short of the field. It does not anymore, and the costs haven’t been obvious. The teams are winning, the academic standards have held under more competitive rosters, and the budget has grown roughly in line with the rest of the conference rather than ahead of it. The harder question is what it means for the athletes living in it. Wesleyan brought athletics closer to the center of the university. Whether athletes can still move easily between the field and everything else is the next thing to find out.”

“Extra Points is not typically a Hot Takes sort of publication. I’m certainly not shy about giving my opinion about stuff, but when I do, I at least try to have that backed up with receipts and research. That’s part of why I do so much FOIA-based reporting.

But over the last year, I’ve got a hunch that I can’t quite completely quantify. I’ve certainly heard enough anecdotally over the course of my reporting conversations to build a suspicion, but I want to admit right from this jump that what I am offering here is an I think statement, not an I know statement.

What I think is that kind of NIL is basically dead.”

» State of Play. “A few things have changed since 2021. The novelty around athlete marketing deals has completely vanished, which has changed the value proposition for brands and for media outlets (like this one!) that cover those deals. And many athletes, either via collectives, or most recently, directly from the school via House payments, are earning way more money for their athletic participation than they are from marketing activity.”

» Reality Check. “Combine that with the fact that most of the tech companies that were launched around NIL in 2021-2022 have either folded or dramatically changed how they do business, and the decline in NIL programming activity at college sports industry events, and I think you have meaningful evidence to suggest that there has been significant change.”

» Why It Matters. “The new industry shiny object is about growing revenue for payroll. To the extent that there’s more demand for marketing-based deals, it’s because schools (and MMR companies) are desperate for funding that they don’t have to count against the House Cap…not because brands are beating down the doors of ol’ State U, demanding to hire baseball players for affiliate marketing and appearances.”

“The IWLCA has named four All-Americans as positional Players of the Year. The organization has also named the 57 student-athletes who were selected for one of the 2026 Division III All-American teams.”

Player of the Year/Attacker of the Year. Caroline Adams, Middlebury
Midfielder of the Year. Lindsey Diomede, Wesleyan
Defender of the Year. Caroline Messer, Middlebury
Goalkeeper of the Year. Izzy Weintraub, Wesleyan

First Team. A-Caroline Adams, Sr. (Middlebury); A-Julia Daly, Sr. (Gettysburg); A-Franny Donohue, Sr. (Williams); A-Audrey Harrington, Sr. (Salisbury); A-Eleanor Helm , Fr. (Tufts); A-Marissa Lucca, Sr. (TCNJ); A-Emily Petersen, Sr. (Amherst); A-Allie Zorn, Sr. (Tufts); M-Lindsey Diomede, Sr. (Wesleyan); M-Sydney Mentzer, Sr. (York); M-Brookelyn Morrison, Sr. (Christopher Newport); M-Stefanie Sellitto, Sr. (Stevens); D-Lucy Bishop, Jr. (Middlebury); D-Belle Dintino, Sr. (Franklin & Marshall); D-Abby Fleishell, Sr. (Salisbury); D-Samantha Hark, Sr. (Trinity); D-Caroline Messer, Sr. (Middlebury); D-Janey Sypeck, Jr. (William Smith); GK-Izzy Weintraub, Sr. (Wesleyan)

» Tennis (M). Top-seed Advik Mareedu of Claremont-M-S became just the third player in DIII men’s history to win back-to-back NCAA singles titles as he defeated second-seed Michael Melnikov of Swarthmore, 6-3, 6-1. The Denison duo of Ethan Green and Kael Shah defeated Gage Gohl and Tyler Haddorff of Gustavus Adolphus, 6-2, 6-4, to capture the doubles crown.

» Financial Aid. “Swarthmore College has announced that it will offer free tuition for students from families with annual household incomes of $200,000 or less. The new Swarthmore Tuition Guarantee will go into effect for the 2027-28 academic year. Only domestic students will be eligible for the offer.”

» Finances. “The State University of New York at Fredonia is sunsetting 10 undergraduate majors, four graduate programs and seven minors as it tackles an $8.1 million budget deficit, according to the university.”

» Diving. “NCAA Division III diving champion Nina Schwab will transfer to join the Michigan Wolverines for the upcoming 2026-2027 season. Schwab just finished her sophomore year at Carleton College.”

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