A proposed executive order from President Donald Trump signed on April 3, 2026, aimed at reshaping college and “saving” college athletics has caught the eyes of many across the NCAA landscape. The plans proposed in the executive order look to level the playing field between the Power 4 and smaller mid-major programs.
College athletics is currently dominated by the wealthiest programs who have the most money to spend on the best athletes. At this time there are little to no rules on how much money can be distributed to athletes by the program. President Trump believes that rules and guidelines for college athletics are necessary.
“College sports cannot function without clear, agreed-upon rules concerning pay-for-play and player eligibility that can’t be endlessly challenged in court, as is the case now,” the White House said in a press statement about the order.
By limiting the amount of transfers and number of years athletes can compete, the president hopes to retain the competitiveness of college athletics. The plans of this proposed order are scheduled to go into effect Aug. 1.
This does not mean that the plans in this order are the law. Rather, it shows Congress and the NCAA how he believes they should act when it comes to fixing the current rules in college sports.
Graphic by Tryston Duby
Stated in the order is the rule to play five seasons in five years, opposed to the current plan allowing athletes to play four seasons in five years. This allows for student-athletes to still have four years of remaining eligibility if they choose to medically redshirt a season for example.
Several college athletes today are applying for eligibility waivers to extend their competition. This results in athletes who may be playing their fourth season of college sports, but have been in college for six years. This change would be strict and primarily only allow athletes five years to compete for five seasons.
This would also have an effect on many teams current rosters. If an athlete competed for four years then as of now their eligibility is expired. However, under the new model these players would be granted one more year to play wherever they wanted.
This would be similar to the Covid-19 year when student-athletes were given an extra year of eligibility due to their season getting cut short. The difference now is that name image and likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal are dominant.
Senior players that wish to return to their team for their fifth could find that there are no roster spots available to them since they already left. Additionally these senior players could return to their team if there was an open spot which could discourage incoming transfers or freshman from coming to the program.
These fifth year players would be some of the most talented and sought after athletes in the country, and Southeast Missouri State University athletic director Brady Barke believes they could make a very noticeable impact on the college athletics if the order goes through.
“They may be some of the better players in the country.” Barke said, “They would theoretically command much larger amounts of money that may or may not be available to them, and so you may have schools that are trying to sit back and wait to see if something happens.”
Even now there are college basketball athletes that are in the transfer portal with no eligibility remaining, waiting to see the results of the executive order.
Currently athletes are allowed to transfer once every season. In this proposed order athletes are only allowed one transfer before being required to sit out for a season of play.
This plan would help smaller schools such as SEMO if it were in place by giving them a much better opportunity to retain their players and compete with the power programs. It would not completely fix the portal problem, but would give programs more certainty on who they were retaining from year-to-year.
If this order were to be in effect however, it would only be in place for athletic programs that generate at least $20 million in annual athletics revenue. This would not include nearly all mid-major programs, meaning that they’d likely not feel the effects of this until agreeable rules were decided on.
Because of this SEMO head basketball coach Brad Korn and the basketball program say they are not paying attention to this. With the ever-changing landscape of college athletics programs are constantly adapting to new rules, so coach Korn and the basketball program do not believe in changing their formula for a possible change like this.
Barke also has been taking a measured approach, rather than making constant operational adjustments.
“If we try to adjust or adapt every time something different comes out, we’d constantly be doing that,” he said.
Still, Barke acknowledged that the Power 4 programs often are governed under similar rules for consistency across the NCAA, and the possible rules would likely be placed on mid-majors at some point.
Barke believes the coming months are important in deciding what could be pivotal changes for college athletics regarding transfer rules, college eligibility, and revenue sharing structure.
“The next 60 to 90 days will be really interesting,” Barke said. “Every decision has ripple effects.”