Skiing in college in USCSA is pretty sweet in my opinion, but I think that at least 80% of USCSA involved schools are college club sports. Not that that’s a bad thing, but equipment, travel costs, uniforms, scholarships etc... Are rarely going to be funded by the university or college and when it is, its probably from donors. But its important to note that it’s the school's fault for the lack of funding NOT USCSA's
What I see happening at my university (Washington State) and many others, is the need for college sports to generate money to succeed and continue to get funding from the school. At Football and Basketball games they can charge for tickets, concessions, beer. There are big sponsors, and lots of times the stadium is filled... They can use this money to upgrade equipment and facilities, pay for travel, scholarships etc.
I know it can get fucking real at the regional and national level, to the point where some people might want to watch the event. But with freestyle skiing you aren’t going to pull as big of crowds as football or basketball can.
The non-Regional/ non-national events like the qualifiers give off more of a beer league vibe that certainly doesn’t cater towards making money. But even if a substantial amount of money could be made at USCSA events its unlikely that the school would be getting even a percentage of it. It is much more likely that the host mountain would get a cut as well as those working the event.
I don’t think creating a NCAA freestyle skiing league will change anything because at the end of the day it’s the university’s and college’s that need to fund freestyle skiing teams and I don’t see that happening...
tldr:
competitive skiing at the college level is really cool, but will probably stay at the club level where it is now.