Higher education is undergoing significant changes. In 1968, seven million students attended an American college or university. Today, that number tops 15 million. In 1968, no students earned degrees over the Internet. Last year, almost four million students took classes via distance learning.

In 1968, fewer than 100,000 students from other nations attended college in America. Last year, that figure topped 600,000.

The net result is that we have more students than ever pursuing higher education in the United States. They come from more nations and more diverse backgrounds. They are served in a wide variety of delivery methods. And, I might add, these changes are coming at a time when state funding for higher education is shrinking. The New York Times recently reported that in 2004, appropriations for higher education fell in 43 of the 50 states.

What does all this have to do with intercollegiate athletics?

The above profile paints a picture of a sophisticated student population that demands more at a time when universities can least afford to provide it -- at least through traditional means of state appropriations. That means the process of university advancement, through fund-raising, friend-raising and plain old visibility, is more important today than ever for the modern American university. And in these modern times, when bowl game payouts reach into the millions of dollars, athletics equals advancement.

When we held the press conference in 1990 to announce Troy University's intentions of moving from NCAA Division II to Division I, I said it was an advancement move, not an athletics move. I believed the entire university family would benefit from the move. To fully understand my position, a brief overview of Trojans athletics is in order.

Students at our university have been competing on the athletics fields since the early 1900s. Throughout the early years, our teams competed successfully under the umbrella of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), including the university's first football national championship, in 1968.

In 1970, Troy athletics joined the NCAA as a member of Division II and the Gulf South Conference. The Trojans had great success for two decades in Division II, capturing a pair of national football championships as well as numerous titles in baseball, golf and other sports.

During that period as a member of Division II, our university started to grow and expand. No longer were we a small, regional university. We were changing and starting to grow into an institution that had an impact not only in the state of Alabama, but nationally and internationally, as well.

The 1970s marked the beginning of the development of the worldwide Troy University. Today, we operate four campuses in Alabama and more than 60 campuses outside Alabama in 17 U.S. states and 11 foreign nations. In the aggregate, we serve more than 24,000 students worldwide.

Of course, serving students from Alabama is still at the heart of what we do, but, with about 12,000 students from outside our home state studying with us -- including students taking online courses in 50 states and 13 time zones -- we can't pretend to be the university we were 25 years ago.

In 1990, our board of trustees voted unanimously to pursue Division I membership. By 1992 the athletics program was granted Division I status, with the football team set to begin play in Division I-AA. Again, Troy athletes flourished against the new level of competition. The football program advanced to the Division I-AA playoffs in seven of eight years of eligibility and the men's basketball program, in its first season in Division I, set an NCAA record by scoring 258 points in a single game.

By the end of the 1990s it was obvious that athletics could provide Troy University with more than just entertainment and school spirit. We discovered at Troy what others elsewhere already knew: Athletics success is the single-most effective way of providing visibility for a university.

In June 1998 the board of trustees again chose to pursue a higher level of competition by voting to begin the process of moving the football program to Division I-A. The move allows greater name recognition for Troy University while at the same time providing a greater value to our graduates, both past and future.

The decision to move to Division I-A also was not taken lightly. Serious consideration and research went into the process. Many other schools had taken this step yet failed to realize their expectations. We wanted to make sure Troy University was ready. The success we have enjoyed since making the move tells me that we were.

Since the decision was made to move to Division I-A in football, every athletics facility on campus has undergone tremendous renovation, or is brand new, and more new facilities are on the horizon. Those improvements would likely not have been possible without the increased exposure, and increased level of donations generated by the move to Division I-A.

An indication of the financial impact the move has had is the amount of revenue generated through football. In 1994, the football revenues at Troy University totaled $250,000. In 2003, that amount had risen to more than $3 million.

Does this mean that visibility and money were the reasons for leaving Division II for Division I? Not really.

Troy University is located in the heart of southeast Alabama, a state where athletics, particularly football, is taken seriously. Our admissions office tells us that intercollegiate athletics -- Division I athletics -- plays a major role in the college decision of many in our target audience. We have to get them to Troy before they can take advantage of the more than 70 majors we offer through five different academic colleges.

As marketing expert Bob Sevier, senior vice-president of STAMATS, says: "If students do not know about your institution, they can't enroll in your classes."

Troy University is a unique institution. We are based in a state that places a high value on competition at the highest level; yet we have campuses located throughout the world in countries that have never heard of the BCS or the Rose Bowl or appreciate American intercollegiate athletics. If athletics is to be a unifying and visible force at Troy University, it must be played at a level where all 24,000 of our students worldwide can see us, appreciate our efforts and understand the stakes. Division I is that level.

Jack Hawkins Jr. is the chancellor of Troy University.