In 1945, eight world-class universities looked at the future of college football and decided to put into place a foundation of academics to their model of athletics with the Ivy Group Agreement.
 
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale created the Ivy Group Agreement in 1945 to “maintain the value of the game while keeping it in fitting proportion to the main purposes of academic life.” The goal of the agreement was to uphold academic standards and eligibility requirements for student-athletes, including the administration of need-based financial aid without granting athletic scholarships.
 
Although the decision only applied to football at the time, the agreement also formed the groups that oversee the Ivy League’s legislative process even today: the Presidents, the Policy Committee (made up of senior non-athletic administrators from each school), and the Committee on Administration (made up of the athletics directors).
 
Nine years later, the Ivy League presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to apply to all intercollegiate sports, emphasizing intra-League competition and a desire that recruited athletes be academically representative of each institutions’ overall student body. With that agreement, the Ivy League principles were born, and two years later, the first conference matchups were played.

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Throughout the 2019 season, the Ivy League will celebrate the 150th anniversary of college football (CFB150) with 150 consecutive days of original content illustrating the League’s storied tradition, modern success and continued impact on the game. Follow @IvyLeague or visit ivylg.co/Ivy150 for daily content updates through regional rivalry weekend on Saturday, Nov. 23.