The NCAA News - Digest

July 1, 1996

• Division I student-athletes maintain 58 percent rate
• Women's basketball attendance eclipses five-million mark
• Membership receives forms for NCAA study, federal compliance
• Committee accepts amendment to raise NYSP funding

GRADUATION RATES

Division I student-athletes maintain 58 percent rate

Division I student-athletes who receive athletically related financial aid continue to graduate at a rate higher than the overall student body.

The most recent NCAA Division I Gradua-tion-Rates Report shows that the total number of student-athletes who graduated in the class that entered in 1989 was 14 percent higher than the class that entered in 1985-86, the last year before Proposition 48 went into effect. During the same time, the total number of student-athletes increased only two percent. Also, about 20 percent more black student-athletes graduated in the class that entered in 1989 compared to the 1985 entering class.

The report, released June 28, showed an increase in the graduation rate for African-American males, offsetting a decline experienced by the 1988 class.

The rate for all black male student-athletes in Division I for the 1989 entering class was 43 percent, which matched the 1987 class for the highest mark ever. Similarly, the graduation rate for African-American Division I male basketball student-athletes was 39 percent, which also matches the high mark of the 1987 entering class. Since the study began in 1984, the 1988 entering class is the only one in which a decline was noted for Division I African-American student-athletes and for black male basketball players.

Staff contact: Ursula R. Walsh.

ATTENDANCE

Women's basketball attendance eclipses five-million mark

NCAA women's basketball attendance continued to eclipse records as 1996 national home attendance surpassed the five-million mark for the first time in history.

The total of 5,233,954 for all NCAA varsity teams, excluding double-headers with men's teams, represents a net increase of 272,008 over the 1995 total. The figures include all 874 NCAA institutions with varsity teams -- 296 of them Division I members.

The five-million-plus spectators who watched NCAA women play in 1996 was an increase of 5.5 percent over the 1995 figure. This was the 15th consecutive year (every year in which the survey has been conducted) that attendance reached an all-time high.

NCAA national women's attendance has almost tripled since 1982, when attendance records began. Per-game attendance has increased at a similar rate, from 281 per game in 1982 to 703 last season.

NCAA Division I attendance provided much of this growth by more than tripling its 1982 total of 1.15 million to 4.16 million in 1996.

In Division I home attendance only, the 296 teams set marks for net attendance at 3,760,940 and 1,223 per game.

Staff contact: Richard M. Campbell.

GENDER EQUITY

Membership receives forms for NCAA study, federal compliance

Member institutions have received a collection of gender-equity disclosure materials

The package, which was mailed June 7, is designed to assist member institutions in complying with federal Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act and also with the NCAA's periodic gender-equity survey.

The survey is to be returned by October 1 to Ursula R. Walsh, NCAA Director of Research, 6201 College Boulevard, Overland Park, Kansas 66211-2422.

Staff contacts: Janet M. Justus and Ursula R. Walsh.

NYSP

Committee accepts amendment to raise NYSP funding

The House Appropriations Committee has accepted an amendment to increase National Youth Sports Program funding to the $12 million level appropriated in fiscal year 1995.

The amendment added $480,000 to the $11.52 million figure adopted recently at the House subcommittee level.

The mark-up is continuing, with floor action expected shortly after the July 4 recess.

The Senate will mark up its version of the bill in July and August.

Staff contacts: Doris L. Dixon and Edward A. Thiebe. .