Graduation rates increase

INDIANAPOLIS – An overall increase of 1 percentage point in graduation rates may not seem significant. NCAA president Myles Brand disagrees.

For the second straight year, the NCAA released figures showing more than three-quarters of college athletes, 77 percent, graduate within six years, a slight increase over last year’s 76 percent.

“One percent is good, very good,” Brand said Wednesday when the NCAA released new figures on the graduation success rate. “Most importantly, if you look at all the trends in each subgroup, we’re seeing equal or better trend lines.”

The study included 93,000 Division I athletes, almost all on scholarship, who entered college from 1996 to 1999.

All sports, regardless of gender, had higher graduation rates under the NCAA’s formula than those calculated under federal guidelines. The difference in the totals is a result of the NCAA now including transfers in graduation rates, something the federal numbers do not take into account. Brand said the distinction is that the federal study misses about 35 percent of athletes, which is why only about 68,000 athletes were included in the federal numbers.

This is the second year the NCAA has released its own data. Athletes in 35 sports – 17 men’s and 18 women’s – were evaluated. Graduation among male athletes increased from 69 percent to 70 percent, while female athletes remained at 86 percent.

As usual, men’s basketball, football and baseball were the lowest-ranked sports.

Men’s basketball again had the worst graduation rate of any sport, 59 percent, but the NCAA number was much higher than the federal figure (45 percent). Baseball and football were the next lowest, with both showing 65 percent of athletes graduate. The federal numbers showed football with a 55 percent graduation rate and baseball at 46 percent.

Conversely, 82 percent of women’s basketball players graduated, 17 percentage points higher than the federal number. But that was the third lowest rate on the women’s side.

The NCAA plans to release overall graduation rates for each school later this year.