Colleges add football to boost male enrollment, school spirit

The Roanoke College Maroons played their first football game since 1942.

Colleges are adding football programs to recruit male students and raise school spirit, reports Hechinger's Miles MacClure on NPR

In Virginia, Roanoke College hopes football, a marching band and competititive cheerleading will reverse the decline in enrollment.

"Women outnumber men by about 60% to 40% at four-year colleges nationwide," writes MacClure. In 2019, Roanoke had 1,125 women as students and 817 men. This fall, enrollment is evenly split, and the incoming freshman class is 55 percent male.

On Sept. 6, the Roanoke Maroons played their first game since 1942, beating Virginia University of Lynchburg by 23-7.

Adding football usually boosts male enrollment for the first few years, then fades out, according to a A 2024 University of Georgia study. But it's become a popular tactic.

Roanoke President Frank Shushok Jr. wants a livelier campus. "It plays to something that's really important to 18- to 22-year-olds right now, which is a sense of belonging and spirit and excitement."

Roanoke's enrollment-building strategy includes guaranteed admission for community college students who finish an associate degree, writes MacClure. The college also added nine new majors in 2024, including "cannabis studies."

I knew students who majored in cannabis, but didn't earn credit for it.

Tuition, room and board are $55,000 a year, but four out of five students receive financial aid, the college says.