Ryan Murphy was a long standing alumni of California Berkley before turning professional

This coming September the new American College swimming season will start, and with that brings one of the most significant rule reforms in recent memory. The biggest of these reforms and subsequent controversies is around the sizes of each college’s roster. The size of rosters has been limited to 30 male swimmers and 30 female swimmers. Other big changes impact scholarships and prize money. But what will this all mean for both the swimmers and the colleges?

The size of rosters being restricted for each college will have a number of substantial impacts. Firstly, increasing reliance on versatility of its swimmers now that strength in depth cannot be relied upon, especially among colleges with traditionally bigger rosters. Bigger programmes will potentially have to make cuts to their rosters which may seem unfair on the swimmers that have already been enrolled into that college. In addition, injuries will have a bigger impact on competitive swims since colleges will not be able to replace the injured swimmer, assuming they fill their roster up to the maximum limit. This could potentially link with the cutting of the rosters. If a swimmer is injured then they may be more likely to face getting cut to make way for a fully healthy swimmer.

However, the limiting of the roster sizes could prove to be beneficial in the long term for American swimming as it will force swimmers to be more versatile and swim more events which could stand them in good stead for when they turn professional and could lead to more medals at major competitions. This change may also already be affecting how the colleges go about recruiting their freshman swimmers, deliberately recruiting versatile swimmers who swim multiple events to cover more of the events. It will be interesting how colleges go about recruiting over the next few seasons.

There have also been changes to the scholarship system. Previously colleges were restricted on how many full scholarships they could award. They were allowed to offer 14 scholarships for the women and 10 for the men. Now however, the colleges are not restricted on scholarships they can offer. This will again affect recruiting of freshmen swimmers with colleges able to go after the best prospects and offer the best deals to the best swimmers to bolster their rosters. With only 30 spots for men and 30 for women each new recruit will be a key decision for the recruiters. This will allow more swimmers to get scholarships and continue their swimming careers where they may have previously been a walk-on without a scholarship offer. There is however a downside to these changes. Walk-on swimmers (swimmers who were not offered a scholarship) will be much less common. This means that swimmers who are maybe not the best or most exciting prospects will struggle to find spots for them to carry on swimming. Which is a shame because there are numerous cases of walk-ons maturing and developing late, working really hard and achieving great success because they were able to find spots on high quality swimming programmes. With the restriction on roster sizes and more scholarships available walk-on swimmer stories will be fewer and farther between, which will be a shame because the unsung heroes and inspiring stories of swimming are the ones that quietly get on with their training and through hard work achieve great results. With these stories being less likely that will be a loss for the sport as a whole.

The final change to the NCAA American college system is around prize money and compensation. Previously, athletes who turned professional earning money from sponsors and prize money could not remain on a college programme. Athletes still on college training programmes could not accept money from sponsors or prize money. Now though colleges can share up to $20.5 million per year with all their student-athletes across all sports, not including scholarships. This money can be distributed to athletes based on various factors, results for example, but it's expected that high-revenue sports like football and basketball may receive a larger share. This is a significant change from college athletes having to stay amateur and not make any money out of their sport, despite significant media attention or recognition or success on the international stage. This is a positive change as it will allow athletes to keep competing longer and potentially earn some money from the sport they have committed years of training towards. It will be interesting to see how these changes impact the college swimming scene over the next few years.

Young British hopeful Jack Brown joins California Berkley for the 2025/26 season

In other news related to the American College system, West Country local youngster Jack Brown has signed for California Berkeley starting in September 2025. He had stints at Soundwell swimming club, since merging with Bristol penguins becoming Bristol South Glos, and with Plymouth Leander. After a breakout meet at the British Championships in April in London, he has become a name to watch out for in the coming years. Having just turned 18 he still has a lot of potential, and that shows with his impressive improvements throughout the 2025 season.

Before January of 2025 he had not swum a 100-metre butterfly in under 54 seconds. Going into British Championships in April he had a best time of 53.29. at the British Championships he swam a best time of 51.87 winning a silver medal, finishing just behind Ed Mildred. This makes him the fastest junior in the event. He backed up this performance with new best times in the 50 freestyle, 22.71, 100 freestyle, 49.62, and 200 butterfly, 2:00.83, earning him a trip to Slovakia on Great Britain’s European U23 team.

Brown will certainly add some much-needed speed in Berkeley’s butterfly and relay events with a number of their top swimmers graduating and becoming unavailable to swim for them. Berkeley will be hoping that he can make even further improvements to really standout as one to watch at major competitions. With the environment, coaching staff consisting of David Durden and David Marsh, reputation, and Olympic Gold Medallist alumni that Cal Berkeley boasts, most notably backstroker Ryan Murphy, flyer Tom Shields, and current superstar freestyler Jack Alexy, it would be a fairly safe bet that Brown will be able to make solid improvements and really set himself up for great success.