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Division I college athletes continue to improve academically, at least as measured by the National Collegiate Athletic Association's academic progress rate, the NCAA announced Wednesday. But historically black colleges and universities still trail other programs, with all but one of the 10 institutions facing sanctions this year for not meeting the NCAA's minimum APR requirement being HBCUs.
The NCAA requires teams to reach a minimum APR of 930, which the association says is roughly equivalent to half of a team being on track to graduate. Critics, however, say the metric is arbitrary and does not accurately measure academic progress, especially at institutions with missions to enroll underserved students.
HBCUs and other limited-resource institutions have seen some gains in recent years. The overall single-year APR for limited-resource schools increased from 945 to 966 in the last five years, while HBCUs, specifically, saw an increase from 918 to 956. The NCAA also recently announced a series of education initiatives to provide more academic support to those institutions.
The overall four-year rate for all Division I institutions is 979, up one point from last year.
