The Duke men’s basketball program posted a ideal score in the latest NCAA Graduation Success Rate scores, which the NCAA released earlier this week, and overall Duke led area ACC schools in GSR.
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USC’s school-record Graduation Success Rate stems in part from improvement by its men’s basketball team, whose most recent rate was 82 percent, an increase of 15 percentage points from the previous year. Five of these Red Storm teams achieved ideal graduation success rates of 100 percent; women’s volleyball, women’s tennis, women’s soccer, men’s tennis and men’s golf.
The NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR), a four-year composite statistic for the freshman classes of 2005-06 through 2008-09, was 81 percent. Its football team posted a score of 94 percent, and was one of four FBS schools to post a score of 93 percent or better in football. Men’s basketball improved on the all-time high 64 percent GSR set by the program last year jumping to 80 percent this year.
“We are extremely proud of our student-athletes who, year after year, perform well athletically, serve more than 2500 hours in the community and statistically are above the national average in GSR”, said Associate Vice President for Athletics Kathleen Meehan. NIU Football is second among all Illinois Division I institutions (FBS and FCS), behind only Northwestern (97 percent), with Illinois State and Illinois checking in at 78 and 70 percent, respectively.
At USC, the women’s basketball and golf teams both had 100 percent Graduation Success Rates. GSR scores do not reflect the quality of an athlete’s educational experience, and do not include athletes who left an institution in good academic standing.
According to the NCAA, the GSR rate “provides a more complete and accurate look at actual student-athlete success by taking into account the full variety of participants in Division I athletics and tracking their academic outcomes”.
“The single greatest obligation we have to our student-athletes and their families is to ensure they receive the world-class education the University of Minnesota offers all of its students and leave here with their degree”, Gophers interim athletics director Beth Goetz said in a statement. “Providing NIU student-athletes with the tools to succeed in the classroom and beyond takes a team effort, involving the students, coaches, our coordinators in SAASS and the faculty and academic advisors throughout campus”.
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Arizona State University just reached an all-time high 84 percent graduation success rate.
