Division 2 Schools in Kansas: All 5 NCAA D2 Colleges

Key takeaways

• Kansas has five NCAA Division 2 schools: Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Newman, Pittsburg State, and Washburn.
• All five compete in thegghv Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association.
• Four sponsor football. Newman does not.
• Only two sponsor men’s soccer, and both play that sport in a different conference.
• Division 2 uses the equivalency model, so most athletes receive partial aid rather than a full ride.
• Kansas has no state NIL statute for college athletes, and no Kansas D2 school has a collective at the scale the state’s Division 1 programs do.

Kansas has five NCAA Division 2 schools, and all five play in the same league. Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Newman, Pittsburg State, and Washburn belong to the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. Five is a short enough list to actually compare side by side, which is more than most states can say.

But the division label is the least useful thing on that list. Two schools can both be Division 2 and offer completely different lives. One has your major and no roster opening. One has the roster opening and sits four hours from home. What follows is the comparison that matters: who sponsors your sport, what the aid really looks like, and where the money comes from now that NIL reaches this level too.

What schools are in Division 2 in Kansas?

Five schools. Emporia State in Emporia, Fort Hays State in Hays, Newman in Wichita, Pittsburg State in Pittsburg, and Washburn in Topeka. Four are public. Newman is the only private one.

The full list of D2 colleges in Kansas

Which conference do Kansas Division 2 schools play in?

All five compete in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, usually shortened to MIAA. Be careful with that acronym. There is also a Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association in Division 3, and a Mid-American Conference in Division 1. Three different leagues at three different levels. When a coach or a recruiting service says MIAA to a Kansas athlete, they mean Mid-America.

The conference was founded in 1912 as the Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association and took its current name in 1992. It is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, and commissioner Mike Racy has led it since 2017. Its fourteen members sit across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, and all but one are public schools. That one exception is Newman.

For a recruit, the practical translation is regional travel. Conference road trips run across the Midwest rather than the country, which means shorter bus rides, more games your family can attend, and a clearer read on the level of play. It also hands you a built in comparison set. If one Kansas D2 school is recruiting you, look at how the same sport is staffed at the other thirteen.

Which Kansas D2 school sponsors your sport?

This is the most important table on this page, and it is why checking the sport matters more than checking the division.

Two rows deserve a second look.

Men’s soccer. A men’s soccer recruit looking at Kansas D2 has exactly two options, and neither plays MIAA soccer. Fort Hays State and Newman both compete in the Great American Conference for that sport. Three of the five schools on this page are simply not options, and the two that are will send you on a different travel schedule than their own football team.

Football. Newman is a Division 2 school that does not sponsor football at all. A school can be D2 overall and still not field your team.

Beyond the shared sports, each campus carries something the others do not. Newman has bowling and triathlon for men and women. Emporia State added disc golf for both. Fort Hays State has the widest menu at eighteen varsity sports. If you compete in something outside the standard nine, your list of Kansas options can drop to one.

Rosters change. Confirm any single cell on the athletics site before you build a list around it.

Division 2 universities in Kansas, school by school

Emporia State Hornets, Emporia, public, MIAA since 1991

The Lady Hornets won the 2010 NCAA Division 2 women’s basketball championship over Fort Lewis College, still the school’s only NCAA team title. Softball won the first AIAW Division 2 national championship in 1980 and played for national titles again in 2006 and 2008. Baseball finished as Division 2 World Series runner up in 2009.

The most telling line on the résumé comes from 2004, when Emporia State became the first school to send football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball, and softball to NCAA postseason play in the same academic year. That is a department funding more than one thing.

Football has had one head coach, former Hornet quarterback Garin Higgins, since 2007. Coaching stability is worth real money to a recruit committing for four years, and it is the variable most families forget to ask about.

Fort Hays State Tigers, Hays, public, MIAA since 2006

Eighteen varsity sports, the widest range of the five, including wrestling and golf for men and women that most of the others do not sponsor.

Men’s basketball went unbeaten at 34 wins and no losses to win the 1996 NCAA Division 2 championship, with back to back NAIA titles in 1984 and 1985. The women won an NAIA title in 1991. In 2020 the Tigers beat Division 1 Kansas State by 81 to 68. Football won its first MIAA championship in 2017.

One practical caveat. Hays is the westernmost of the five campuses. Families in Kansas City, Topeka, or the southeast corner should price out the drive before falling in love with it. Four home games a season your parents cannot reach is a real cost.

Newman Jets, Wichita, private, MIAA member since 2022

Newman joined the conference as an associate member in 2019 and became a full member in 2022. It is the only private school of the five, the only one without football, and the one carrying the most varsity sports at nineteen. That includes bowling and triathlon for men and women, which have almost no other Division 2 home in the region.

Wrestler Noel Torres won an NCAA Division 2 individual national championship in 2018. Men’s soccer competes in the Great American Conference rather than the MIAA.

Wichita is the largest city of the five campuses, which matters more than recruits expect. Internships, clinical placements, and paid work are easier to find in a metro that size, and that shapes what happens after eligibility runs out.

Pittsburg State Gorillas, Pittsburg, public, MIAA

The football program has more wins than any other in NCAA Division 2 history and four national championships. Two of those came in Division 2, in 1991 over Jacksonville State and 2011 over Wayne State of Michigan. The 1957 and 1961 titles came during the school’s NAIA era. If you see four D2 titles claimed anywhere, that is wrong.

Its rivalry games with Northwest Missouri State were played at Arrowhead Stadium from 2002 to 2013. The 2002 edition drew 26,695, the largest crowd ever for a Division 2 game.

But football is no longer the most dominant thing on this campus. Pitt State track and field has won five men’s indoor Division 2 titles, in 2018, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026, plus four straight men’s outdoor titles from 2022 through 2025, and both the 2025 and 2026 women’s indoor championships. The women also won outdoor titles in 2016 and 2024. Women’s basketball reached its first Final Four in 2025. If you throw, sprint, or jump, this is one of the best D2 programs in the country right now, and almost no recruiting page mentions it.

Washburn Ichabods, Topeka, public, MIAA since 1989

Sixteen varsity teams. Football at Yager Stadium at Moore Bowl, basketball at Lee Arena, baseball at Falley Field.

Washburn is having the best current run of any school on this page. Women’s soccer entered the 2025 NCAA tournament as the top overall seed and lost by 2 to 1 to Franklin Pierce in the national semifinal at Weidner Field in Colorado Springs. Men’s basketball reached the 2025 Division 2 Final Four with 26 wins against 3 losses, its seventeenth NCAA tournament appearance. Women’s basketball won the 2005 national championship, beating Seattle Pacific by 70 to 53.

Topeka is the state capital, which is not a small detail for anyone majoring in political science, criminal justice, public administration, or nursing. Legislative internships sit twenty minutes from the locker room.

How D2 scholarships work at Kansas Division 2 schools

Division 2 uses the equivalency model. A program receives a set number of scholarships and divides them across the roster, which means most Division 2 athletes are on partial aid rather than a full ride. Those awards can usually be stacked with academic scholarships, grants based on financial need, and institutional aid.

That stacking is where the real number lives. An athletic award of 25 percent at a school with strong merit aid can beat an award of 50 percent somewhere with none. Compare packages, not percentages.

Two questions coaches rarely volunteer:

• What does year four cost, not year one?
• What happens to my aid if I get hurt, or if there is a coaching change?

Get both answers in writing before you commit. Aid at this level renews annually, and “we will take care of you” is not a renewal.

NIL at Kansas D2 schools: the segment with no collective

Here is the part almost nobody writes about. NIL exists at Division 2, but the machinery around it does not.

Kansas has no state NIL statute for college athletes. The state has stayed deliberately silent, leaving policy to the NCAA, the Kansas Board of Regents, and individual institutions. Kansas high school athletes are a separate matter entirely. They fall under KSHSAA rules that bar NIL activity during school hours, prohibit using school or KSHSAA names and logos, and forbid referencing high school athletic awards in NIL work. If you are being recruited right now, you sit under the second set of rules and will move to the first set when you enroll.

The bigger difference is structural. The University of Kansas, Kansas State, and Wichita State have organized collectives, agency partnerships, and donor infrastructure. Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Newman, Pittsburg State, and Washburn do not, or not at anything close to that scale. Revenue sharing figures you read about in Big 12 coverage describe a Division 1 mechanism that has nothing to do with a Division 2 roster.

That cuts two ways. No collective is writing checks at a Kansas D2 school. There is also almost no competition for the local sponsorship, the community appearance, the camp, or direct fan support, and a D2 athlete in Emporia or Pittsburg is often the most recognizable athlete in town. The market is small, but it is uncontested.

Treat NIL as a rounding error when you compare offers, not a reason to pick a school. Then, once you are on a roster, treat it as something you build.

Kansas sports teams beyond Kansas, Kansas State, and Wichita State

Kansas college sports get discussed almost entirely through three Division 1 programs. The state’s actual footprint runs far deeper: five NCAA Division 2 schools, sixteen NAIA schools, and twenty junior colleges.

That depth is a strength for recruits, not a consolation. A Division 2 campus can offer real rivalries, competitive schedules, and a professor who knows your name. It can also offer something the three big schools structurally cannot, which is a realistic path to playing as a sophomore.

Division 2 baseball schools in Kansas

All five Kansas Division 2 schools sponsor baseball, which makes this the deepest in state option of any sport on this page.

Baseball recruiting turns on detail, and roster openings alone tell you very little. Roster size, pitching needs, transfer portal activity, redshirts, and junior college recruits all change your odds. A useful checklist:

• Position need. Ask where the staff sees you in two or three years, not as a freshman.
• Development plan. Strength work, throwing programs, recovery protocols, and whether anyone gives direct feedback.
• Spring academics. Spring travel is brutal. Ask specifically how players in your major handle labs, clinicals, and internships.
• Daily facility access. Practice space matters more than the photos from game day.
• Total cost. Athletic aid plus merit aid plus need based aid plus housing plus travel home.

Kansas also has a deep junior college and NAIA baseball scene, so D2 staffs recruit heavily from both. That helps late bloomers. It also means you should be honest with yourself about competition for innings.

Division 2 football schools in Kansas

Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Pittsburg State, and Washburn. Newman does not sponsor football.

Division 2 football is serious football without the FBS machine around it. The training, film study, travel, and standards are real. What differs is that the schedule is built to let you also be a student. For most players that trade is the entire point.

Questions worth asking on every visit:

• What position group am I being recruited for?
• How many players already sit on the roster at that spot?
• Do you expect me to redshirt?
• What does summer look like, and is it optional?
• How do players in my major handle practice and travel?
• What does the full package look like after athletic and academic aid?

NAIA Division 2 schools in Kansas: why that label does not exist

People search this constantly. The label is retired.

The NAIA once split basketball into Division 1 and Division 2, then merged those divisions. Today the NAIA presents itself as a separate association with its own members, conferences, and championships, not as a tier beneath the NCAA. A Kansas school can be NAIA, but that is a different governing body from NCAA Division 2, with different rules, recruiting calendars, aid structures, and postseason formats.

Kansas has sixteen NAIA schools: Baker, Benedictine, Bethany, Bethel, Central Christian, Friends, Haskell Indian Nations, Hesston, Kansas Wesleyan, McPherson, MidAmerica Nazarene, Ottawa, Saint Mary, Southwestern, Sterling, and Tabor. None is an NAIA Division 2 school.

The state also has twenty junior colleges, all competing in the Kansas Jayhawk Conference. For a lot of Kansas athletes that is the real second option, not a fallback.

Sort your list by governing body first, meaning NCAA D1, D2, D3, NAIA, and JUCO, and the rest of the process gets simpler. It also tells coaches exactly what you want when you email them.

Division 2 schools in Kansas and Missouri

Crossing into Missouri roughly triples your options. Missouri adds MIAA members Central Missouri, Missouri Southern, Missouri Western, and Northwest Missouri State, plus Great Lakes Valley Conference schools including Drury, Lincoln, Maryville, Missouri S&T, Missouri St. Louis, Rockhurst, Southwest Baptist, Truman State, and William Jewell.

For anyone in Kansas City, eastern Kansas, or along Interstate 70, a Missouri D2 school may sit closer to home than Fort Hays State does.

One asymmetry is worth knowing. Missouri passed a law allowing high school athletes to begin earning NIL money once they sign with a school inside the state. Kansas has no equivalent statute. That gap only affects the window between signing and enrolling, and it touches a small number of athletes, but if you are a Kansas recruit being courted from both sides of the border, it is a real difference and nobody will explain it to you unprompted.

Keep your criteria identical on both sides of the line: major, roster need, coach contact, total cost, campus feel, travel, and graduation support.

How to build your D2 college list

1. Fix your requirements. Major, distance from home, cost ceiling, campus size, sport.
2. Check sport sponsorship first. Use the table above. The division label tells you nothing about whether your team exists.
3. Read rosters, not just websites. Class years, positions, hometowns, and transfer patterns show you how a staff really builds.
4. Email coaches something usable. Film, grades, test scores if you have them, your competition schedule, and two sentences on why that school specifically.
5. Visit, and watch a practice. Games are marketing. Practice is the job.
6. Compare real annual cost. Not scholarship percentages.
7. Take notes after every conversation. Interest changes fast, in both directions.

The right choice is the one you would still be glad about after an injury or a coaching change. If a school only works when everything goes right, it does not work.

Frequently asked questions about D2 schools in Kansas

How many Division 2 schools are in Kansas? Five. Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Newman, Pittsburg State, and Washburn.

What conference are Kansas D2 schools in? All five belong to the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, a Division 2 conference with fourteen members across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

Which Kansas D2 schools have football? Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Pittsburg State, and Washburn. Newman does not sponsor football.

Do Kansas D2 schools offer athletic scholarships? Yes, under the Division 2 equivalency model. Programs divide a set number of scholarships across the roster, so most athletes receive partial awards that stack with academic and need based aid rather than full rides.

Is Newman University a Division 2 school? Yes. Newman is the only private NCAA Division 2 school in Kansas and the only one of the five without a football program.

Are there NAIA Division 2 schools in Kansas? No. The NAIA merged its basketball divisions and no longer uses a Division 2 label. Kansas has sixteen NAIA schools, but they belong to a separate association from NCAA Division 2.

Which Kansas D2 school has the most sports? Newman carries nineteen varsity sports, including bowling and triathlon. Fort Hays State follows at eighteen, including wrestling and golf.

Can Kansas D2 athletes earn NIL money? Yes. Kansas has no state NIL statute for college athletes, so NCAA and institutional policy governs. No Kansas D2 school operates a collective at the scale of the state’s Division 1 programs, which leaves local sponsorship and direct fan support largely uncontested.

Final takeaway

Kansas has five NCAA Division 2 schools: Emporia State, Fort Hays State, Newman, Pittsburg State, and Washburn. All five play in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association.

Baseball players can consider all five. Football players have four options. Men’s soccer players have two, and both play that sport in a different conference. Anyone searching for NAIA Division 2 schools in Kansas should know that the NAIA and NCAA Division 2 are separate organizations.

Division 2 in Kansas is competitive, regional, and more affordable than families expect when they only ever looked at the Big 12. Pick on fit, not on tier.