Merrimack College plans to add four Division I varsity sports in the 2027-28 academic year: women's flag football, acrobatics and tumbling, men's swimming and men's rowing. The North Andover school's expansion comes as it grows while other New England institutions close or merge.
The Boston Globe reported that Merrimack plans to grow its student-athlete population by more than 40 percent over five years. Men's rowing carries no roster limit at all, and the school expects to eventually field around 60 men rowers on the water.
Women's flag football will mark the first program of its kind in New England, according to the newspaper's reporting. The sport, a noncontact version of football backed by the NCAA and NFL, has been expanding rapidly across college athletics. Roughly 48 flag football teams are set to begin play in the coming years, per collegiateflagfootball.com data cited in the Globe's coverage.
Enrollment Growth in Context
Merrimack's total enrollment has grown from 4,000 to 7,500 over the past decade, according to The Boston Globe. The paper also reported that higher education consultant Peter Stokes described Merrimack as one of a handful of colleges that have grown over the last decade-plus while other institutions struggle.
What the Enrollment Figures Measure
What the Enrollment Figures Measure Undergraduate enrollment is distinct from total enrollment. The student-athlete growth target is separate from both measures.
Stokes also pointed to a financial logic behind the strategy: large-roster sports, he said, can increase enrollment without driving down net tuition revenue.
Facilities, Staffing and a Five-Year Build-Out
The sports additions are only part of a broader plan. Over the next five years, Merrimack intends to expand its football stadium and build a seasonal dome for a full-field indoor practice facility serving varsity, club and intramural sports, along with a new baseball facility, a gymnasium, and a boathouse along the Merrimack River. The college's Agenda for the Future document identifies roughly $50 million to $75 million in capital improvements spread across academic, student and athletic facilities, though the share earmarked specifically for athletics was not detailed.
Merrimack athletic director Joe Foley said athletics can have transformative benefits for student-athletes.
Momentum From Recent Wins
The push comes on the heels of a strong stretch for Merrimack's existing programs. The men's hockey team won its first Hockey East championship this year, the men's basketball team captured the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title, and the women's basketball team earned its first invite to the Women's National Invitation Tournament. Merrimack completed its transition from Division II to Division I competition in 2024.
Merrimack also offers graduate programs, tuition pathways, and three-year applied bachelor's degrees.
Other Schools Try Similar Playbooks
Merrimack is not alone in leaning on athletics to grow. Alverno College in Milwaukee built a three-year plan around the same idea; its president described the approach, in comments reported by Athletic Business, as a natural strategy to help grow the college. Alverno reported a 5 percent increase in new-student enrollment, a 60 percent jump in new undergraduate enrollment, and a 75 percent increase in new student-athletes for the 2026-27 academic year.
Closer to home, Stonehill has added women's ice hockey, women's golf and men's swimming, with men's golf and women's swimming still to come, per MassLive's reporting on small colleges using athletics as an enrollment strategy.
The Backdrop: A Region Losing Colleges
Merrimack's expansion unfolds against a backdrop of real strain across New England higher education. An analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston counted 12 Massachusetts schools shut down or merged since 2015, the most in New England, with Vermont close behind at 11. The same report counted 32 New England four-year colleges closed or merged over the last decade, including 12 since 2020.
The pressures driving those closures are demographic as much as financial. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education has projected a 13 percent decline in the number of high school graduates between 2025 and 2041, a trend the Boston Fed's report links directly to the wave of New England closures. Among the casualties: Goddard College closed in 2024 after years of declining enrollment and financial struggles, per the Boston Fed. Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy also shut down after more than a century in operation; the Boston Fed cites a 2024 closure.
