I had a fun shower thought yesterday. It would never happen, but I think it would be fun and even good for all college sports. For this purpose, I'm going to use college basketball as an example, but it could be applied to football and other sports.
I believe that currently D1 basketball teams are allowed to have 13 scholarships. In most European (top level professional) soccer leagues there are certain registration rules. In the English Premier League (EPL) for example, teams can register up to 25 players and 8 of them have to be "homegrown." That's 32%. Homegrown for the EPL means that a player needs to have spent at least 3 years on an English team by their 21st birthday. For the purpose of this exercise, I'm going to define homegrown as someone that played at least 3 years of high school basketball in your local state. So BYU would need 4 Utah HS basketball players on scholarship and UConn would need 4 HS basketball players from Connecticut. These players don't necessarily have to sign with a local college straight out of HS to count; they can be portal transfers. For example, a Utah HS player originally commits/signs/plays for Duke for two years, then transfers to BYU. He would count as homegrown.
In addition, for Champions League (CL) football (soccer), you need to have 4 of your 25 (16%) players be "club trained." For CL that means "Club-trained players who were on a club's books for three entire seasons...between the ages of 15 and 21." I'm going to twist that to mean that at least 2 basketball scholarship players need to have been at the school for at least their first 2 seasons after HS. So you need to have at least two players that are sophomore or beyond that started as a freshman at your school. These club trained players can also qualify to be homegrown.
If a school is unable to meet either the homegrown or club trained quota, then their total number of scholarships are reduced by the amount that they are short. So if a school has 4 homegrown players, but only 1 club trained, then their total number of scholarships would be reduced to 12.
Lastly, in European soccer, players under 21 generally don't count toward the 25 player registration at all. I will translate this to all freshman players won't count towards the 13 scholarship limit in college basketball.
TL/DR Summary:
Current college basketball scholarships: 13
Required Homegrown players (played 3+ years of HS basketball in local state): 4
Required Club Trained players (played 2+ years for original committed school): 2
Young Player Registration/Scholarship: All freshman players don't count towards 13 scholarship limit
Of course the transfer portal would make all of this incredibly difficult (although these registration rules may help calm down these transfers as well). Personally, in addition to the above rules, I'd really like to see a two year commitment from both players and schools. HS players commit to playing for their original school for two years. They cannot transfer a first time, or a second/third time until they've spent two years at the school. Personally, I think this should also apply to "one-and done" players. Either go pro after HS or commit to at least 2 years of college ball. The commitment needs to go both ways though and schools wouldn't be able to release or revoke scholarships for athletic performance. Legal/grade/Honor Code or anything that would get them kicked out of the school are a different matter. Another thought along these lines is that maybe for every two years that a player spends at a school, the school guarantees three years of paid tuition. So a player that stays all 4 years at the same school could get 6 years (including graduate school!) paid for. Speaking of graduate school, why do graduate transfers even need to be a thing anymore? Why not just let a player stay at the same school and play 6 seasons, all at the same school? If they are legitimately attending classes, I have no problems with this.
I believe that currently D1 basketball teams are allowed to have 13 scholarships. In most European (top level professional) soccer leagues there are certain registration rules. In the English Premier League (EPL) for example, teams can register up to 25 players and 8 of them have to be "homegrown." That's 32%. Homegrown for the EPL means that a player needs to have spent at least 3 years on an English team by their 21st birthday. For the purpose of this exercise, I'm going to define homegrown as someone that played at least 3 years of high school basketball in your local state. So BYU would need 4 Utah HS basketball players on scholarship and UConn would need 4 HS basketball players from Connecticut. These players don't necessarily have to sign with a local college straight out of HS to count; they can be portal transfers. For example, a Utah HS player originally commits/signs/plays for Duke for two years, then transfers to BYU. He would count as homegrown.
In addition, for Champions League (CL) football (soccer), you need to have 4 of your 25 (16%) players be "club trained." For CL that means "Club-trained players who were on a club's books for three entire seasons...between the ages of 15 and 21." I'm going to twist that to mean that at least 2 basketball scholarship players need to have been at the school for at least their first 2 seasons after HS. So you need to have at least two players that are sophomore or beyond that started as a freshman at your school. These club trained players can also qualify to be homegrown.
If a school is unable to meet either the homegrown or club trained quota, then their total number of scholarships are reduced by the amount that they are short. So if a school has 4 homegrown players, but only 1 club trained, then their total number of scholarships would be reduced to 12.
Lastly, in European soccer, players under 21 generally don't count toward the 25 player registration at all. I will translate this to all freshman players won't count towards the 13 scholarship limit in college basketball.
TL/DR Summary:
Current college basketball scholarships: 13
Required Homegrown players (played 3+ years of HS basketball in local state): 4
Required Club Trained players (played 2+ years for original committed school): 2
Young Player Registration/Scholarship: All freshman players don't count towards 13 scholarship limit
Of course the transfer portal would make all of this incredibly difficult (although these registration rules may help calm down these transfers as well). Personally, in addition to the above rules, I'd really like to see a two year commitment from both players and schools. HS players commit to playing for their original school for two years. They cannot transfer a first time, or a second/third time until they've spent two years at the school. Personally, I think this should also apply to "one-and done" players. Either go pro after HS or commit to at least 2 years of college ball. The commitment needs to go both ways though and schools wouldn't be able to release or revoke scholarships for athletic performance. Legal/grade/Honor Code or anything that would get them kicked out of the school are a different matter. Another thought along these lines is that maybe for every two years that a player spends at a school, the school guarantees three years of paid tuition. So a player that stays all 4 years at the same school could get 6 years (including graduate school!) paid for. Speaking of graduate school, why do graduate transfers even need to be a thing anymore? Why not just let a player stay at the same school and play 6 seasons, all at the same school? If they are legitimately attending classes, I have no problems with this.