The NCAA released its annual graduation report Tuesday. Amid the numerous academic scandals going on throughout the country, the report actually sheds a bright light on student-athletes, as 84 percent of the athletes who entered college in 2007 earned a degree within six years.
Since the NCAA began collecting the graduation rates 12 years ago, there has been a reported 10 percent increase in overall Graduation Success Rates (GSR), 14 percent increase by black males, 18 percent spike in men’s basketball and 12 percent jump in football.
“It’s the highest [rate] ever by a good measure and it’s up virtually across the board,” NCAA president Mark Emmert told The Associated Press. “It’s the best academic performance we’ve ever seen.”
At Duke, athletes of the 26 varsity sports posted a 97 percent GSR, 15 percentage points higher than that of the national average and 8.9 percent higher than the ACC’s average.
Of the 26 Blue Devil teams, 17 posted a perfect 100 percent GSR: baseball, men’s basketball, men’s fencing, men’s golf, men’s tennis, men’s cross country/track and field, women’s basketball, women’s fencing, field hockey, women’s lacrosse, women’s soccer, women’s swimming and diving, women’s tennis, women’s cross country/track and field and volleyball.
The remaining nine squads all posted a GSR of at least 83 percent and eight of the nine scored 91 percent or better. Women’s golf (83), men’s soccer (91), football (92), wrestling (94), women’s rowing (95), men’s lacrosse (95), men’s swimming and diving (97) made up the group of nine.
Alongside the GSR, the Federal Graduation Rates were also released Tuesday. Duke scholarship athletes that enrolled in 2004-07 posted a four-year class average of 84 percent. The difference between the GSR and the federal rate is that the GSR takes into account transfers that left the program in good academic standing. Also, the FGR only includes student-athletes that are on scholarship.
The Patriot League led all conferences in both graduation success rate at 93 percent and federal graduation rate at 85 percent.
The ACC was not far behind, registering a GSR of 88.1 percent, which is still better than the NCAA average of 84 percent. In football, the ACC is the only Power Five conference to have multiple teams score 90 percent or higher in the past 10 years. Notre Dame, which led the ACC with a GSR of 99 percent, joined the Blue Devils as the only other men’s basketball program to post a 100 percent GSR.
But the conference was not without its dark spots.
The NCAA average for football programs was 71 percent, but not all schools in the ACC managed to best the national average. The fellow Triangle schools struggled, as North Carolina State posted a GSR of only 65 percent—tied with Florida State for the worst in the league—and North Carolina followed it up at 69 percent.
The Tar Heel men’s basketball program scored a GSR of 88 percent, but is still in hot water, along with the University as a whole, following the Wainstein Report, issued last Wednesday. Former U.S. Justice Department official Kenneth Wainstein presented his report, in which he accused the University of academic fraud via its African and Afro-American Studies department. More than 3,100 students—47 percent of which were athletes—benefitted from what the report called “paper classes,” in which professors would grant artificially high grades. The AFAM department carried on this behavior for more than two decades.
Emmert spoke on the report for the first time Monday.
“Just based on the [Kenneth] Wainstein report, this is a case that potentially strikes at the heart of what higher education is about,” Emmert said in an interview with the Associated Press. “Universities are supposed to take absolutely most seriously the education of their students, right? I mean that’s why they exist, that’s their function in life. If the Wainstein report is accurate, then there was severe, severe compromising of all those issues, so it’s deeply troubling.... It’s absolutely disturbing that we find ourselves here right now.”
But North Carolina is not be the only ACC school with academic missteps. In August, Notre Dame suspended five football players for alleged academic misconduct. None of the suspended players have yet been reinstated. Media reports came out earlier in the month revolving around Syracuse’s football and men’s basketball teams, as the reports stated that the programs will face an NCAA hearing regarding alleged rules violations that include academic impropriety.
With graduation rates seemingly increasing each year yet falling alongside academic scandals like that of North Carolina, the NCAA will look to continue its emphasis on providing its players with the education they deserve while simultaneously cracking down on institutions that attempt to cheat the system.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.