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Ninety percent of athletes in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association graduated within six years of starting college, according to the association’s recent report on the 2020 Graduate Success Rate, or GSR. Like last year, Division I athletes continue to have the same federal graduation rate, 69 percent, as the general student body, an association press release said.
GSR, which the NCAA claims is a “more accurate appraisal” of athletes’ academic success, is a unique six-year graduation rate and tends to be much higher year to year than the rate the federal government uses. Athletes who are in good academic standing when they leave an institution are not included in the NCAA’s GSR calculation, while federal graduation data count students who leave an institution as nongraduates. Athletes who transfer to a new institution and graduate are included in GSR, whereas the federal rate does not include these students.
Notably, the GSR for male basketball players went up by 4 percent this year compared to last, and Black male basketball players increased their GSR by 6 percent, the release said. Both male and female Black athletes continue to have a higher federal graduation rate -- by about 10 percentage points -- than Black students who are not athletes, the release said.
This is also the first year that institutions in Division III were required to send graduation data to the NCAA, and athletes in this division were found to have surpassed the average federal graduation rate with a 68 percent average, compared to 63 percent for the general student body, the release said. Similarly, Division II athletes surpassed the federal graduation rate of general students, with a 62 percent federal rate for athletes and 53 percent rate for all students, the release said.
