As the NAIA is debating whether to accept members with ABHE and TRACS accreditation, i looked at their membership a little closer to see see how many potential members are there.

It’s really not many. Here’s how ABHE membership breaks down-

158 members
135 offer Bachelors degrees
About 32 Bachelors degree granting institutions offer athletics
15 or so of the 32 are also regionally accredited already so could already be NAIA if they wanted.. 1 or 2 are in the USCAA now.
So definitely less than 20 potential members and few if any are anywhere near the NAIA level and most have very few sports programs. My guess would be less than 5 even remotely decent candidates in the group.

Even if the change passed, there are few potential new members.


TRACS has 96 members, less than 20 with athletics. A few are in the USCAA already. A few more are also regionally accredited, and most of the rest are very limited athletics programs.

Between the 2, the NAIA could probably only gain less than 10 members. And in that group, most are very small schools. Much smaller than a normal NAIA school.

I would guess that this will not pass. The only reason I could it being advantageous is if some of the schools were needed to bulk up a certain region or stop a conference from collapsing and causing other members to leave. And few, if any, of the potentials in this group seem to fit that bill.