Despite the fact that both the Canadian and American intercollegiate athletic leagues are highly competitive, there are significant differences between the two intercollegiate athletic systems, which may produce different experiences for student-athletes enrolled in each system. The differences between the two systems are related to the fundamental triad of issues which affect postsecondary education as a whole: access, quality, and funding. In the context of intercollegiate athletics and for the purposes of this paper, the author refers to access as the admission of student-athletes to institutions, quality as measures and outcomes related to student-athletes' athletic and academic performance, as well as their personal development within intercollegiate athletics programming, and funding as the methods and resources institutions use to finance their athletic programs. This paper discusses these differences in access, quality, and funding between the intercollegiate athletics system governed by the largest organization of American intercollegiate athletics, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), and the intercollegiate athletics system governed by the Canadian organization called Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS).