As the bridge where university meets sport, FISU is in a unique position to shape young lives and impact their futures. FISU’s vision is a world where leaders of society are positively influenced by their university sport experience and this is why to us, more than any other sports federation, education is as much a raison d’être as sport.
The fact is, a very small percentage of young athletes go on to making a living out of professional sport. According to the NCAA – probably the strongest college sports system in the world – Fewer than two-percent of student-athletes go on to become professional athletes. For the rest, it is academics that prepare them for life after college.
Athletes have a right to combine sport and higher education, but the reality is that there are vast differences in the recognition of the ‘student-athlete’ status and availability of dual career programmes and services worldwide.
Since the Taipei 2017 Summer Universiade, FISU has been conducting surveys of participating student-athletes regarding their dual career. The results of the Taipei 2017 survey were published in a scientific paper that can be found here.
Comprehensive surveys were also conducted among the participants of the Krasnoyarsk 2019 Winter Universiade and the Napoli 2019 Summer Universiade. These online questionnaires recorded the student-athletes’ experiences, cross-referenced with important demographic information like nationality, gender and age. The full results can be downloaded here: WU2019 and SU2019.
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Swiss University Sports |