The college graduation rate for women student athletes playing for NCAA Division I schools in the 2012 national tournament continues to be significantly higher than that for their male counterparts, and the graduation gap between Black women and their female White peers remains narrower than that for Black and White male student-athletes, says a new report issued Wednesday.
“Keeping Score When It Counts,” the annual analysis of NCAA graduation and academic achievement data performed by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, found an 88 percent overall graduation rate for women, compared to 67 percent for men.
As important, the report says, the gap between graduation rates for Black women student-athletes and their White counterparts was 8 percent compared to the 28 percent gap it found between male Black student-athletes and their male White counterparts on Division I tournament teams.
White female basketball student-athletes on the Division I tournament teams graduate at a rate of 93 percent compared to 85 percent for Black women basketball student-athletes, the analysis found. White Male basketball student-athletes on tournament teams graduate at the rate of 88 percent, compared to 60 percent for their male Black counterparts, the study found.
The study sample is of schools that qualified for this month’s 2012 NCAA Division I tournaments. It was based on graduation data for the 2004-2005 cohort of student-athletes enrolled in those schools. It uses a six-year graduation scale, as does the NCAA.
Dr. Richard Lapchick, institute director and primary author of the annual study, and Education Secretary Arnie Duncan, the highest ranking government official to champion higher expectations of college programs for student-athletes, praised the findings in the new report and used its issuance to again call on colleges across the nation to take note and do better with the education of male student-athletes.
“All we’re asking for is a healthy balance” between emphasis on athletic and academic achievement, says Duncan, a former college athlete who touts himself as a “huge believer” in college sports.
