Does it field a women’s basketball team?
Yes. University of California-Merced reported 17 women’s basketball participants in the Equity in Athletics return it filed for 2025-26. That is the institution’s own count of the squad, not a roster page Athlavia has read, and it is the figure the United States Department of Education publishes.
It competes in NAIA and in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. It is one of 9 NAIA women's basketball programmes in California, out of 161 programmes there in total.
The athletics department’s own site is where the current roster and coaching staff are published.
Read from the department’s own published staff directory, checked against it again on a schedule, and shown with the page and date they came from. Athlavia drafts the approach for you and you send it yourself, from your own address.
Can it award a basketball scholarship?
NAIA rules permit athletically-related student aid.
University of California-Merced reported athletically-related student aid awarded to women in its most recent federal return. The amount is the total across every women’s sport at the institution — basketball, and also volleyball, soccer, track, swimming and the rest. It is not a basketball budget, and it is not what one player receives.
Read alone it is routinely mistaken for a per-player offer. Inside Athlavia it sits next to the squad size, the division's own limits and the published cost, which is the only way it means anything.
It is one of 58 institutions in California whose return reports athletic aid awarded to women, out of 161 that field women’s basketball at all.
What it costs and what it is like
A published cost is held for 2023-24: tuition, mandatory fees, room and board, insurance and a travel estimate, with the international tuition rate separately where the institution publishes one.
A single yearly total tells a family almost nothing. What decides whether a place is reachable is which line is the big one, and whether the international rate differs — so Athlavia shows the lines, not a headline.
- Type
- Public
- Enrolment
- 8,236
- Selectivity
- Held — free account
- City
- Merced
- State or region
- California
- Country
- United States
- Campus setting
- suburban
- Climate
- Not recorded
- International share
- 1%
Degrees recorded here
Only the courses Athlavia has read and tagged. It is not the institution’s full prospectus.
- Anthropology.
- Applied Mathematics.
- Biology, General.
- Biomedical/Medical Engineering.
- Business Administration, Management and Operations.
- Chemistry.
- Cognitive Science.
- Computer Engineering.
- Economics.
- English Language and Literature, General.
- Environmental/Environmental Health Engineering.
- Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies.
- Geological and Earth Sciences/Geosciences.
- History.
- Linguistic, Comparative, and Related Language Studies and Services.
- Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods.
- Materials Engineering.
- Mechanical Engineering.
- Philosophy.
- Physics.
- Political Science and Government.
- Psychology, General.
- Public Health.
- Research and Experimental Psychology.
- Romance Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics.
- Social Sciences, General.
- Sociology.
- Visual and Performing Arts, General.
How it compares
Across the 220 NAIA women’s basketball programmes in this database, the average listed squad is 20 players. University of California-Merced lists 17, 3 players below that average. Among the 9 NAIA programmes in California, it has the 8th largest listed squad.
Squad size is a fact about the return, not a judgement about the programme. A large squad can mean depth or it can mean a long bench; a small one can mean minutes are available or that the roster is already settled. It is a question to ask a coach, not an answer.
Where these figures came from
| Field | Value | Source | Retrieved | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Squad size | 172025-26 | ope.ed.govEADA 2025-26 schools.xlsx, PARTIC_WOMEN for Basketball | 12 Aug 2026 | 96% |
| recruitingBand | 54-742025-26 | ope.ed.govInferred from EADA operating expense per women's basketball participant ($5,649/player), ranked on a log scale against all 1857 programmes (percentile 64). Division is not used as an input. | 12 Aug 2026 | 55% |
| Degrees | 28 undergraduate degrees listed, including Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies., Biomedical/Medical Engineering., Computer Engineering. | collegescorecard.ed.govCollege Scorecard field latest.programs.cip_4_digit, undergraduate credentials only | 12 Aug 2026 | 90% |
| Tuition | held — free account2023-24 | collegescorecard.ed.govCollege Scorecard fields latest.cost.tuition.in_state and latest.cost.tuition.out_of_state | 12 Aug 2026 | 92% |
| costOfAttendance | held — free account2023-24 | collegescorecard.ed.govCollege Scorecard field latest.cost.roomboard.oncampus | 12 Aug 2026 | 92% |
| institutionProfile | held — free account | api.data.govCollege Scorecard v1 /schools, fields latest.admissions.admission_rate.overall, school.locale, location.lat, location.lon, latest.student.demographics.race_ethnicity.non_resident_alien read verbatim | 12 Aug 2026 | 92% |
Every stored fact carries the source it came from, the date it was read and how it was extracted. Figures shown on this page without a row above are recorded with the source on the record itself — the athletic aid figure, for instance, carries the Department of Education’s athletics site as its source. Check it at the source.