You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
Ninety percent of Division I athletes from the National Collegiate Athletic Association graduated within six years of starting college, according to the NCAA’s 2021 report on graduate success rates, or GSR. That remains unchanged from 2020. Division I athletes also maintained the same national graduation rate as last year—69 percent—which is one percentage point higher than that of the overall student body.
Looking at different populations, Black Division I student athletes had a GSR of 80 percent and Hispanic/Latino student athletes graduated at a rate of 88 percent. Women Division I athletes graduated at a higher rate than their male counterparts, 94 percent to 85 percent; both exceeded the GSR of the general student body, which was 71 percent for women and 65 percent for men. Notably, the GSR for Division I athletes who competed in the top level of college football, the Football Bowl Subdivision, held steady at 81 percent. DI women’s basketball players increased their GSR by two points, to 94 percent. The report notes that potential pandemic-related impacts on graduation rates will not be fully known for several years.
The numbers for this year’s GSR were determined by athletes who enrolled in an institution in 2014. When the NCAA started tracking its graduate success rate 20 years ago, its graduation success rate for Division I athletes was 74 percent.
