As colleges across the country eliminate varsity sports as a cost-saving measure, Fairleigh Dickinson is doing the opposite.
The private New Jersey university is adding men’s fencing starting in 2027, a move that deputy athletic director Jason Young said should contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual net profit for the school once the team is fully formed.
No, men’s fencing won’t sell a ton of tickets or bring a flood of donations, nor are the media rights valuable. But the Knights choose to account for sports on their ledger by including the tuition paid by athletes—and fencing isn’t particularly expensive to offer. With that holistic view, new teams can contribute to the department’s bottom line soon after launching.
“Every fencing program in America should be profitable,” Young said in an interview.
Fairleigh Dickinson’s plan, according to Young, is to start with 10 male fencers in 2027 and grow to a full team of 24 by 2030. If the Knights eventually spread six full scholarships across the program, that could be 18 additional tuitions, which, for this year, is about $37,300 per student. For a small, private, enrollment-driven school like FDU, those students slot in with little additional stress on the university’s broader infrastructure.
In addition to the financial lift, FDU is hoping adding fencing helps with a few broader macro challenges. The school, which competes in the Northeast Conference, has not yet opted into the House settlement, but it intends to, and this could offset any spots lost due to the new roster limit rules. For example, 18 new fencers would more than offset the loss of nine baseball players and five men’s soccer players.
In addition, schools across the country are facing slowing applications—a challenge colloquially called the “enrollment cliff”—which places an added premium on anything that brings new applicants who might otherwise look elsewhere. According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, FDU’s full-time undergraduate enrollment at its Teaneck, N.J., campus dipped 25% from Fall 2013 (2,727) to Fall 2023 (2,037). The FDU athletic department includes 21 teams and nearly 400 athletes.
This all-in form of college sports accounting has been championed by economists who believe the siloed nature of many athletic departments force them to make financial decisions without properly weighing the campus-wide impact. And it isn’t the first time FDU has made this move.
Back in 2021, as schools across the country cut programs to offset shortfalls from the COVID-19 pandemic, FDU added two sports—men’s volleyball and women’s lacrosse. Young said both are now contributing at least $300,000 in annual net profit for the school. Men’s volleyball is at its max roster size, but this year the school grew its women’s lacrosse roster from 27 to 34, Young said, which should create even more upside.
FDU already has a women’s fencing team, which will help the new men’s team keep costs down. Unlike sports such as basketball or soccer, fencing teams travel together and compete in the same events. There will be some additional overlap in staffing, equipment and facilities, with the school likely renting a nearby facility. All told, Young said he expects the new program’s operating costs and salaries will be around $150,000 annually.
In addition to the tuition, FDU received a three-year grant from USA Fencing—Young wouldn’t specify the amount—that will defray some of the upfront cost.
The risk here for FDU is that it fails to attract enough tuition-paying male fencers to offset the cost of the program. Young said he’s not too worried about that possibility, citing the overall financial health of the FDU athletics.
“We had a $3.8 million deficit in 2020,” Young said. “Once we rolled out that strategic plan, we were down about $430,000 last year and are trending toward being net profitable this year.”