Finish What You Start: NCAA Data Shows College Football Players Who Transfer Again and Again Are Far Less Likely to Graduate

College football has never offered more freedom of movement. Players can enter the transfer portal, pick a new school and suit up right away, sometimes more than once. A new study from the NCAA, which ESPN reported ties multiple transfers to lower graduation rates across college sports, suggests that freedom carries a price that never shows up on a scoreboard: a diploma that never gets earned.

The NCAA on Wednesday released a report titled "Academic Impact of Multiple Transfers in Division I," built on data from roughly 36,000 Division I athletes, according to The Washington Times and Sportico. The figures measure six-year graduation rates for athletes who first enrolled in the 2018-19 school year, Fox Sports reported.

Across all Division I sports, athletes who never transferred graduated at an 88% rate. Those who transferred once graduated at 81%, and those who transferred more than once graduated at 71%, according to the report as described by The Washington Times and Sportico.

In major college football, the drop is far steeper. Football Bowl Subdivision players who stayed at one school graduated at 85%, one-time transfers at 76% and multiple transfers at just 58%. That is a 27-point gap between players who stayed put and those who kept moving, and Fox Sports reported a 21% decline between non-transfers and multiple transfers in the Championship Subdivision.

The pattern held across most sports. Multiple transfers generally graduated at rates about 10 percentage points below one-time transfers and 15 to 20 points below athletes who never moved, Fox Sports reported. In women's basketball, the rate fell from 90% for non-transfers to 77% for multiple transfers. Men's basketball was the one notable exception at the first step: one-time transfers graduated at 80%, higher than the 74% rate for non-transfers, often because those players had finished degrees before moving on. But men's basketball players who transferred more than once fell to 67%. The gap was 20 points for Black athletes and 14 points for white athletes, according to the same report.

NCAA President Charlie Baker framed the findings as a call to action. He described the data as "a flashing red warning sign" about court-imposed transfer rules and said Congress is closer than ever to passing a bill to reverse the trend, according to Fox Sports.

The timing is not accidental. The NCAA released the data in the middle of a long legal fight over eligibility and player movement, with the association facing lawsuits over fifth-year eligibility and courts ruling against its eligibility rules in several cases, according to The Washington Times and Sportico.

Sportico also offered a fair caution: the data shows an association between transferring and lower graduation rates, not necessarily that transferring causes athletes to fall short of a degree. Some players who move several times may already be struggling in the classroom or chasing playing time that never comes, and those factors can cut both ways.

Writing at PJ Media, commentator Chris Queen argued the study exposes an uncomfortable truth about the transfer portal and the name, image and likeness era, while acknowledging the argument from supporters that athletes deserve the chance to earn a living from their own name and image.

Here is where I land. Nobody wants to return to the days when a coach could leave for a bigger paycheck while his players were stuck. Young men deserve a fair shake, and some transfers, such as a backup finding a place to play or a player moving closer to a sick parent, are the right call.

But college football was always supposed to be about more than football. A scholarship is meant to open the door to a degree, and for most players the NFL will never call. The diploma is what carries them through the decades after the cheering stops. When a player bounces from campus to campus, credits may not follow him, majors change and the finish line keeps moving.

There is a lesson here that reaches beyond the portal. Finishing what you start is a virtue our grandparents understood well, and Scripture urges believers to run with endurance the race set before them. The coaches, parents and pastors who mentor these young men should be telling them the same thing: the grass is not always greener at the next stop, and a degree in hand is worth more than the promise of more snaps somewhere else.

Expect the NCAA to put these numbers in front of lawmakers and judges in the weeks ahead as it pushes for national rules on eligibility and transfers. Critics of new limits may counter that the better answer is stronger academic support for athletes who move, not fewer chances to move. Both sides should be able to agree on one goal: more players walking across a graduation stage.