INDIANAPOLIS --- NCAA President Myles Brand’s goal of an 80 percent Graduation Success Rate for Division I is a percentage point closer to fruition with the release of recent NCAA data showing the overall GSR for the division at 77 percent, up from 76 percent last year.

The data is from the four-class aggregate of entering classes from 1996 through 1999, for which the NCAA has compiled sport-by-sport GSR and the comparable graduation rate using the federally mandated methodology.

The GSR release is the first of two this fall, and it includes four-class averages for each team at each institution, as well as the four-class graduation rate for that sport. Because the focus is at the team level, the data are provided as four-class aggregates, since that format is a much more accurate indicator of a team’s academic performance than any single-cohort rate. The NCAA will release each institution’s overall federal graduation rate in October. The NCAA also will include each school’s overall GSR for student-athletes on the federal report.

The NCAA developed the GSR two years ago because the federal graduation rate does not credit institutions with student-athletes who leave in good academic standing or for transfers into the school who graduate. The GSR accounts for both of those transfer groups, which has resulted in a more accurate depiction of student-athlete academic success, since it captures about 35 percent more students than the federal methodology.

The NCAA continues to provide the federally mandated graduation rate, however, since there is no comparable rate to the GSR for the student population.  If the U.S. Department of Education adopts the unit record system for every student as recommended by the Spellings Commission, comparable data to the GSR will be available through the federal rate.

The GSR data for the 1996-99 four-class aggregate show that in addition to the increase for the entire division, the GSR for male student-athletes has risen from 69 percent to 70 percent. The GSR for female student-athletes remains steady at 86 percent.

All three Division I subdivisions also realized percentage-point jumps. Schools with football in the Bowl Subdivision went from 77 to 78 percent, schools with football in the Championship Subdivision went from 73 to 74 percent, and schools that do not sponsor football went from 79 to 80 percent, meeting President Brand’s goal he announced earlier this month during a speech at Elon University.

“The goal of 80 percent GSR is not an ‘official’ NCAA goal, but one that I think stretches us but can be accomplished,” Brand said. “Division I is close to that goal now at 77 percent, and these data do not reflect the current academic reforms Division I has adopted in the last three years. The entering class of 2003 is the first subject to enhanced initial-eligibility and progress-toward-degree requirements, and the introduction of the Academic Progress Rate also has prompted institutions to redouble their efforts toward ensuring student-athlete academic success. I believe the 80-percent target for the entire division is attainable in the near future.”

Many individual sports are well above the 80 percent mark already. Skiing (89 percent) lacrosse (88 percent) and fencing (87 percent) were the highest-ranking men’s sports in the GSR, while gymnastics, fencing, field hockey and skiing all posted 94 percent on the women's side.

The lowest-ranking sports for each gender in the GSR were basketball (59 percent), baseball (65 percent) and football (65 percent) for men, and bowling (70 percent), rifle (78 percent) and basketball (82 percent) for women. The men’s basketball GSR of 59 percent, though, was an improvement from the 58 percent four-class average posted by the 1995-98 cohort. Football Bowl Subdivision teams in the 1996-99 cohort also rose one percentage point, from 65 to 66 percent.

In key women’s sports, gains in the four-class average occurred in basketball (from 81 to 82), ice hockey (84 to 88), softball (84 to 85) and soccer (87 to 88).

The research also lists the annual overall GSR by sport for the entering classes from 1995 through 1999. Those data show that the GSR for men has increased from 68 percent to 71 percent and from 85 percent to 88 percent for women. Men’s basketball went from 56 percent to 61 percent in the same period, while Football Bowl Subdivision teams went from 63 percent to 68 percent.