The primary goal whenever the NCAA enhances eligibility standards is to maximize graduation rates and minimize any disparate impact on minority groups. Graduation-rates data from the last two decades — during which two major changes were made — support that notion as African-American student-athletes have made marked improvement in earning their degrees.

Comparisons between the 1984 entering class — the first tracked using the current methodology mandated by the Student Right-to-Know Act — and the most recent 1998 cohort indicate significant gains. African-American student-athletes in 1998 graduated at a 52 percent rate, 17 percentage points higher than their 1984 counterparts. The improvements were just as significant for each gender, with black males in 1998 graduating at a 48 percent rate compared to 33 percent in 1984, and black females graduating at rates of 63 and 45 percent for those years, respectively.

Those gaps are much wider than for white student-athletes during the same period. White student-athletes in the 1998 class also performed better than the same demographic in the 1984 class, but the gains were much less significant (to 66 percent from 59 percent). For male student-athletes, the improvement was by four percentage points (to 59 percent from 55 percent) and for females the jump was seven percentage points (to 73 percent from 66 percent).

Also noteworthy is that for both males and females, including basketball and football, African-American student-athletes continue to do better than the comparable demographic group for the general student body. The graduation rate for all black student-athletes in the 1998 class is 52 percent, compared to 43 percent for the black student body. For males, the comparison is 48 percent for student-athletes and 36 percent for the student body. African-American female student-athletes bettered their student counterparts, 63 percent to 47 percent.

Even in men’s basketball, where rates for both black and white student-athletes have been lower than those from student-athletes in other sports, African-Americans are outperforming their student-body counterparts (38 percent to 36 percent for males; 56 percent to 47 percent for females).

“These figures do not surprise me,” said University of Michigan Faculty Athletics Representative Percy Bates, who as a member of several NCAA committees over the last 25 years was involved in decisions to enhance eligibility standards. “As long as prospective student-athletes, regardless of race, are given an opportunity to understand what is expected and the time to adjust, they are capable — and in many instances much more capable than the general public gives them credit for — of meeting that bar.”

NCAA eligibility standards have undergone two significant shifts in the past 25 years. Perhaps the most controversial change came at the 1983 NCAA Convention when delegates adopted Proposition 48, which set core-course grade-point average requirements and a minimum standardized test score for initial eligibility. Opponents said those requirements would have a disparate impact on economically disadvantaged students and minorities. The National Association for Equal Opportunity, in fact, wrote that the proposed legislation was discriminatory, citing the test-score component as being particularly unfair.

Bates said at the time of Prop 48, there was growing concern that student-athletes who had attended four years of college still weren’t gaining enough credits and making proper progress toward a degree. “There was a sense that something had to be done,” Bates said, “but in making the standards more stringent — which Prop 48 certainly did — you risked reducing access for minorities.”

Balancing access, success

Interestingly, the first class subject to Prop 48 standards — the entering class of 1986 — was the first to outperform the student body in graduation rates, a trend that has continued since. As Bates said, though, some people attributed the increase in graduation rates to a decrease in the number of blacks in the cohort. Indeed, in the years immediately after Prop 48 took effect, the proportion of eligible black student-athletes decreased sharply.

Nine years after Prop 48 was adopted, Convention delegates approved Proposition 16, which changed eligibility rules by once again increasing core courses (from 11 to 13), and then implementing a sliding scale, or eligibility index, for core GPA and test scores. The core-course jump wasn’t much of an issue, since most prospects already were meeting the new bar, and the sliding scale provided more flexibility on the question of access. But some still thought the lingering test-score cutoff was unfair.

Those concerns were softened in 2003 when the NCAA removed the cut score from initial-eligibility requirements. The debate then in fact from the other side was whether eliminating the cut score undercut the momentum of academic reform. However, recent data show that the change granted initial eligibility to a group of student-athletes who were formerly excluded — 72 percent of whom were black. And early indications are that those student-athletes are performing better academically than those who had been admitted using the old standard.

“One of the major reasons for changing the initial-eligibility legislation to incorporate the sliding scale was to minimize the impacts on low-income and minority student-athletes,” said NCAA President Myles Brand. “We have infor- mation now indicating that the change is having the desired effect. Research also supports that eliminating the test-score cutoff was the right approach.

“Although we clearly have work to do so that black student-athletes’ graduation rates are fully comparable to their white counterparts, there is no question that there is genuine improvement over the past two decades.”

Longtime minority advocate Charlie Whitcomb applauds the success and believes more is on the way. He said the NCAA’s current eligibility standards are positioned better than ever to provide equitable access and encourage schools to devote resources to ensuring academic success once student-athletes enroll.

“Fairness is the most important component of any change to eligibility standards,” said the former faculty athletics representative at San Jose State University who now serves as vice provost at the school. “Eligibility standards are not about playing, but about getting an education and graduating. We’ve seen time and again student-athletes of any race or gender step up and meet the bar as long as they know where it is and as long as we give them the opportunity.”

The notion of access has been key to the NCAA Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee, which Whitcomb chaired during the time Prop 16 was implemented.

“You’ve got to have a level playing field that ensures an opportunity for young men and women to perform academically at an institution, and institutions need to provide the resources necessary to help them be successful,” Whitcomb said. “The eligibility standards the NCAA has adopted over time have encouraged all of those factors, which has in turn led to the kind of progress we want to see.”

Michigan’s Bates noted that more improvement — for all student-athletes — is likely now that the next iteration of academic reform is taking hold. The entering class of 2003 was the first subject to yet another increase in core-course requirements, and new progress-toward-degree standards are now based on a 40-60-80 percentage progression rather than the 25-50-75 previously required.

In addition, the newly developed Academic Progress Rate and the penalties that come with under-performance should prompt even higher academic performance.

“The purpose of Propositions 48 and 16 was to correct academic outcomes,” Bates said. “Seeing African-Americans progress at perhaps a faster rate than some other students supports the fact that all we were looking for was an opportunity. Whatever people thought in the past about exploiting Blacks, those worries can be put aside. We have at least to some degree solved that particular problem. The new academic standards only will continue that.”

Whitcomb agreed, saying that it isn’t a matter of the rules being stringent; nor is it a matter of any subset of the cohort not being able to achieve academic success. “But don’t deny the opportunity based on an unfair testing standard, which many believed Propositions 48 and 16 did,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where you raise the bar — as long as it’s fair for everyone, then student-athletes tend to meet it. As long as we ensure proper resources and proper recruitment of kids who have demonstrated a commitment to higher education, then we have a chance to be successful.

“We still haven’t achieved the level of progress we’d ultimately like to see, but I feel strongly that we’re moving in the right direction. The importance of all of this is that when you treat people equitably and ensure that everyone is playing by the same rules, you’ll see the kind of progress we’ve made in the last two decades.”