• NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) Release
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – In the most recent release of Graduation Success Rates (GSR) by the NCAA, Ohio Valley Conference teams continue to show improvement.
The federal graduation rate, while less inclusive than the GSR, provides the only measure of historic academic comparison between student-athletes and the general student body. By this standard, student-athletes consistently outperform nearly all their peers in the student body.
The NCAA's Graduation Success Rate begins with the federal cohort, and adds transfer students, mid-year enrollees, and non-scholarship students (in specified cases) to the sample. Student-athletes who leave an institution while in good academic standing before exhausting athletics eligibility are removed from the cohort of their initial institution. This rate provides a more complete and accurate look at actual student-athlete success by taking into account the full variety of participants in Division I athletics and tracking their academic outcomes.
The OVC's total GSR was 84%, which was higher than the federal rate of 65%, and up from 77% a year ago.
The sport of women’s basketball made the biggest improvements in the OVC, jumping from 78% to 95%, which ranks eighth nationally.
The sport of men’s basketball and football also showed improvements with men’s basketball increasing from 74% to 79% (which ranks 13th nationally among Division I conferences) and football improving from 61% to 67%.
The sport of baseball remained steady at 81%, which ranks it in the top half of Division I conferences.
“Given that the ultimate goal is graduation, we are delighted to see this level of improvement in the GSR rates of OVC student-athletes,” said OVC Commissioner Beth DeBauche. “It is especially gratifying to see an across the board improvement in all monitored sports as we see more student-athletes graduate.”
Nationally, the GSR climbed to an all-time high of 86 percent, two points higher than last year. The GSR for the last four graduating classes of all Division I student-athletes (2005-2008) increased one point to 83 percent. The four-year rate allows a larger sample size and provides a better picture of academic success on teams with smaller squad sizes.
Since 1995, academic standards for Division I college athletes improved multiple times, with increases in initial eligibility standards, progress-toward-degree standards and the creation of the Academic Progress Rate (APR).