UW, WSU Graduation Rates Lag State Schools Rank 8th, 9th Among Pac-10 Football Teams

Hang around for your whole career and you’ll earn your college diploma, administrators at Washington and Washington State emphasize, and the numbers bear that out.

But it’s those pesky other recruits - the ones who drop out for whatever reason before they complete their eligibility - who mess up the schools’ images when it comes to graduation rates.

Last week, the NCAA released its annual report card for college athletic programs, and the Huskies and Cougars both did well enough to avoid public embarrassment … but they still rank eighth and ninth among their football peers in the Pacific-10 Conference.

“We worked real hard with the Class of ‘88, and I think it shows,” UW athletic director Barbara Hedges said, referring to the 50-percent graduation rate for football recruits. That figure raised the UW four-year average to 44 percent - still 20 percent lower than the student body as a whole, 12 percent fewer than the league average and 9 percent off the national average.

Washington State’s football players hit 50 percent for the third consecutive year, but the average actually went down to 46 percent (from 48) because a prior 57-percent slipped off the four-year average.

A record nine Pac-10 programs met at least 50 percent for the most recent reporting period, compared to only five when the national report first became public five years ago.

It literally took an act of Congress in 1990 to force college athletic programs to divulge the information in an apples-to-apples format.

Also driving the improvement has been NCAA legislation increasing admission standards and tying athletic eligibility to annual progress toward a degree.

WSU athletic director Rick Dickson pointed to schools’ “exhausted eligibility rate” as one that he considers of utmost importance.

“That has always been my barometer,” he said of WSU’s 79 percent. “Hold us accountable for the kids that - if you want to call it this - we ‘use’ their athletic talents.”

That’s where the traditional negative image stems from: universities exploiting athletes without giving them a true education leading to a college degree.

Eighty percent of athletes who spend their entire athletic career at Washington graduate within six years of enrolling, the NCAA figures show.

Pac-10 and national averages are 83 and 80 percent.

Washington made some headway in graduating black student-athletes: More than half (51 percent) from the 1988 recruiting class graduated, compared to 48 percent nationally and 29 percent at Washington State. The Huskies’ 54 percent in football for that class was better than the national average and increases the fouryear rate to 38 - just two behind the national average for black football recruits.

Nationally, men basketball players at the Division I level appear to be following their hoop dreams (42 percent, lowest in four years) … while women basketball players (65 percent) continue to pull away from the rest of the student population (56 percent) in pursuit of their diplomas.

Football players continue to close the gap on the rest of the male student population. Four years ago, only 48 percent of Division I-A football players graduated within six years, compared to 55 percent of all men on campus. Latest figures show a gap of just 58 to 55 percent.

Figures from “The Chronicle of Higher Education” show these figures from other area Division I schools for the 1988-89 recruiting class: Gonzaga, 57 percent graduation rate for all students, 60 percent for athletes; University of Idaho, 42 and 51 (17 percent black athletes); Eastern Washington, 40 and 35 (33 percent black athletes).

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Don Borst Tacoma News Tribune The Spokesman-Review contributed to this report