A study released Monday of the 70 Football Bowl Subdivision schools that will participate in the upcoming college football bowl season showed continued academic progress, but that the gap between White and African-American players continues to persist.
The report by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport notes an overall Graduation Success Rate improvement from 67 percent to 68 percent for students on the 70 bowl teams.
A total of 97 percent of schools had at least a 50 percent GSR for football teams, up 6 percent from 2010.
Also, for the second straight year 99 percent of schools received a score higher than the target 925 on the NCAA’s four-year Academic Progress Rate. Teams with a four-year APR of 925 or below face penalties including loss of scholarships.
“If I was an advisor of athletes on a college campus, I would feel good about myself overall,” said primary study author Dr. Richard Lapchick. “One of the things about the report is that if you do well, it helps you stand out. If don’t do well, hopefully the motivation is to continue to do better.”
Lapchick hopes a lot of effort will go toward closing the racial disparity in graduation rates.
While the average GSR for African-American players rose from 60 percent to 61 percent from a year ago, it remains far behind the average for White players, which increased from 80 percent to 81 percent. In addition, 26 percent of the bowl teams (18 of 70) graduated fewer than half of their African-American players, while none graduated fewer than half of their White players.
