Nine NCAA member colleges and universities that graduate student-athletes at the highest rates were announced July 26 as the first recipients of the USA Today-NCAA Foundation Academic Achievement Awards.

Each of the nine institutions will receive $25,000 to use as they choose: for additional scholarships, to begin or support existing programs, or for other purposes.

This is the first year the academic achievement awards have been given. They are possible because of USA Today's gift of $2.6 million provided to the NCAA Foundation last year.

The gift was made to establish a program -- the only national awards program of its kind -- that recognizes colleges and universities in three categories: institutions graduating the highest percentage of student-athletes based on the most recent graduation-rates survey (in this case, the 1994 entering class), institutions with the highest student-athlete graduation rates above the average of the student body and institutions with the greatest increase in percentage of student-athletes graduating over the previous year.

Since the NCAA's normal graduation-rate survey tracks only student-athletes receiving athletically related grants-in-aid, there was no existing information from which to draw in Division III. To gather information for the awards, a form was sent to all Division III institutions. Responses to those inquiries were voluntary. Institutions in other divisions that do not award athletically related aid were provided with the same form.

In Division II, several institutions provided such a limited amount of financial aid that they had only a few student-athletes included in the study. Because it would be unfair to compare an institution with, for example, two students in its class with one that contained 40, it was agreed that an institution's graduation-rate information must contain a minimum of six student-athletes for it to be eligible.

Ties were broken based on the institution with the largest number of graduating student-athletes.

Institutions graduating the highest percentage of student-athletes from the 1994 entering class were:

Division I -- Lehigh University, 94 percent.

Division II -- Southern New Hampshire University (formerly known as New Hampshire College), 100 percent.

Division III -- St. Joseph College (Connecticut), 100 percent.

Institutions with the highest student-athlete graduation rates above the average of the student body were:

Division I -- Long Island University-Brooklyn Campus, 50 percent above the student-body average (71 percent compared to 21).

Division II -- St. Paul's College, 40 percent above the student-body average (67 percent compared to 27).

Division III -- Chestnut Hill College, 29 percent above the student-body average (95 percent compared to 66).

Institutions with the greatest increase in percentage of student-athletes graduating over the 1993 entering class were:

Division I -- Hofstra University, 34 percent improvement.

Division II -- St. Thomas Aquinas College, 53 percent improvement.

Division III -- York College (Pennsylvania), 20 percent improvement.

The institutions will be recognized at a reception and banquet at the new USA Today headquarters in McClean, Virginia, September 28. NCAA President Cedric W. Dempsey and Tom Curley, president and publisher of USA Today, will present the awards.

USA Today's $2.6 million gift is the largest gift the NCAA Foundation has ever received. Of that amount, $250,000 will be disbursed through this program in annual awards to winning institutions for the next five years. The balance of the money will fund the annual awards banquet and space in USA Today highlighting the winners each year and publicizing other NCAA Foundation programs.

"We are delighted that the NCAA Foundation can take an active role with our colleges and universities in recognizing the importance of graduating their student-athletes," said Foundation Executive Director Marion Peavey. "We congratulate the nine winning institutions in addition to the many others with high rates of graduation. The NCAA Foundation also expresses sincere appreciation to USA Today for its generous support of this major scholarship competition."