ASU's athletics graduation success rate at all-time high



NCAA announces graduation success rate for all schools

Statistics for the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) released today by National Collegiate Athletic Association indicated a 76-percent graduation success rate, which is an all-time high for Arizona State University.

The GSR is based on student-athletes who entered college as freshmen in 2000-2004 and allows for the removal of those individuals from the cohort who left ASU in good academic standing prior to completing their eligibility.
 

The GSR is the NCAA's more inclusive calculation of student-athlete academic success. The NCAA rate is more accurate than the federally mandated methodology because it includes incoming transfers and students enrolling in the spring semester who receive athletic aid and graduate and deletes from the calculation student-athletes who leave an institution and were academically eligible to compete. The federal rate does neither.
 

This is the 20th release of institutional graduation rates since national "right-to-know" legislation was passed in 1990. In 2005, the NCAA Division I Committee on Academic Performance implemented the initial release of the team GSR data. 
 

“I look at us as an academic appendage,” said Lisa Love, vice president of athletics. “I look at us as a component fostering intellectual, social [and] emotional growth. The student-athlete is the center of our universe, and the degree to which we teach leadership, risk-taking, teamwork … we teach a whole different kind of citizenship through courage and physical growth and expression.”
 

“The graduation success rate is the most significant measure of student athlete academic achievement that exists,” said Jean Boyd, associate athletic director for the Office of Student-Athlete Development. “This is the fourth consecutive year that we have improved on our way to our goal of at least 80 percent, and we project to improve again next year somewhere between 78 and 80 percent, putting us into the upper tier of the Pac-10.”
 

A total of three ASU teams achieved a 100-percent GSR: women’s swimming and diving, women’s tennis and women’s volleyball. Overall, the women achieved a 93 percent GSR.

ASU is sixth, overall, in the Pac-10 at 76 percent, but just two percentage points from taking the fifth spot, three percentage points from being in the fourth spot, and five percentage points from being in the top three.

For more information, visit thesundevils.com

Media contact:
Mark Brand

480-965-6592
mark.brand@asu.edu