Radford Has Best Graduation Rate Under NCAA Guidelines
INDIANAPOLIS
Led by Radford, almost two dozen Division I schools reported Graduation Success Rates of at least 95 percent for athletes who enrolled in 1995 to 1998. All of them were higher than their general student populations, according to NCAA figures released last week.
The average for the 318 Division I colleges, including the Army, Navy and Air Force academies, was 76 percent. Other GSR averages included 69 percent for men, 86 percent for women, 82 percent for Whites, 59 percent for Blacks, and 68 percent for Hispanics.
The NCAA released data for specific sports in December, but the recent listing was the first school-by-school and gender and ethnic breakdown that also included federal graduation data and a comparison of the rates for athletes with the entire student bodies.
“The Graduation Success Rate is an important indicator of the direction and your commitment to the academic success of your student athletes,” said Greig Denny, the athletic director at Radford, the only Division I school with a 100 percent GSR for 1995-98, the most recent reporting period. “It’s not just with our coaches; there are a lot of people in that commitment, it includes our coaches, our administration and our faculty and staff at the university.”
The figures compiled by the NCAA are generally higher than those reported by the government because the GSR does not include athletes who may have transferred to other schools while still in good academic standing at their original colleges. A separate Academic Progress Report, the figures that will trigger the first penalties under the NCAA’s new academic reform package, are expected by late February or early March.
