Strong in class

INDIANAPOLIS – Nearly every main demographic group of top college athletes exceeds the graduation rate for its student-body counterparts.

According to federal graduation rates released Tuesday by the NCAA, 63 percent of Division I athletes who started college as freshmen in 2000 graduated in six years. That beats the graduation rate for all students at Division I schools by 1 percent and equaled last year’s percentage.

White athletes had a 67 percent graduation rate, compared to 64 percent for white students overall. Black athletes also outperformed their student-body counterparts, 53 percent to 46 percent.

“What these data show are that student-athletes are good students,” said NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson. “There tends to be a myth that student-athletes do not perform well in the classroom.

“The data simply suggests otherwise.”

The NCAA released federal statistics on graduation rates that do not account for transfer students.

Earlier this month, it also released data termed “graduation success rates” that counted transfers and resulted in higher overall totals.

The federal statistics show that 49 percent of black male athletes graduated in six years, compared to 39 percent of their student-body counterparts. Female black athletes had a 63 percent graduation rate compared to 50 percent overall.

The data show that 74 percent of white female athletes graduated, compared to 66 percent overall.

Hispanic male and female athletes also graduated at higher percentages than overall figures for their ethnic groups. But white male and Asian/Pacific Island male students fell short of the overall percentages for their groups.