Division II’s latest Academic Success Rate results show that graduation rates for Division II student-athletes continue to significantly exceed those of the general student body.

Student-athletes in the entering class of 2002 posted a six-year graduation rate of 71 percent as calculated by the Academic Success Rate, far above the 55 percent using the federal graduation-rate methodology that does not take transfers or nonscholarship athletes into account.

The 71 percent rate is steady from last year and up from 69 percent for the 1999 and 2000 classes. The four-year aggregate is at 70 percent – 80 percent for female student-athletes and 63 percent for males.

Division II’s Academic Success Rate is similar to the Division I Graduation Success Rate in that it takes transfer students into account and removes students who left the institution in good academic standing. However, given the partial-scholarship financial aid model of Division II, the Academic Success Rate goes a step further and includes student-athletes not receiving athletically related financial aid.

Academic Success Rate methodology is not applied to the general student body (the U.S. Department of Education has resisted NCAA requests to do so). However, the federally mandated methodology reveals student-athlete success above that of the student body. In fact, for the last 11 years Division II student-athletes have federal graduation rates that are significantly higher than their student-body counterparts. For the entering class of 2002, the difference was eight percentage points (55 percent to 47 percent).

Stephen Jordan, chair of the Division II Presidents Council and president at Metropolitan State College of Denver, said while the low student-body rate may be cause for concern, the fact that the student-athlete rate is so much higher – even under the federal methodology – is the real story.

“It’s important to remember the different missions and regional nature of Division II institutions, many of which feature an open-enrollment policy and serve a population that includes hundreds of first-generation students,” Jordan said. “Given the population we serve, Division II’s partial-scholarship model is helping to move those first-generation students out into the work force with degrees.”

Results by sport

All men’s sports for which the division sponsors championships are no lower than 53 percent for the four-year Academic Success Rate. The three highest were tennis (77 percent), swimming (76) and lacrosse (75), while the three lowest were wrestling (58), basketball (58) and football (53).

Football’s numbers pose a slight concern, since the single-year ASR in the sport has declined in two of the past three years. Football has had the lowest single-year rate in all four years of ASR compilation. The 2002 class also was the first in which the federal rate in football (42 percent) was below the male student-body rate (43 percent).

The top three women’s championship sports in the four-year ASR were field hockey (91 percent), lacrosse (89) and rowing (87), while the lowest performers in the four-year ASR were volleyball (79), basketball (76) and bowling (63).

Other important takeaways from the data:

• The single-year Academic Success Rate for African-American student-athletes has risen one percentage point each year, from 47 percent in 1999 to 50 percent in 2002.
• Single-year ASRs for Hispanic student-athletes have gone from 53 percent to 62 percent over the four years.

Trend analysis

The other important outcome from the most recent report was that it represents the fourth cohort in the Academic Success Rate database, making it the first time that the  calculation has included the same number of years of data as the federal graduation rate. That means that in future years, the Academic Success Rate will be calculated using a four-year rolling average, as is done with the federal rate.

Previously, Academic Success Rate reports had to be compared with those that included fewer cohorts, which not only was an apples-to-oranges comparison but also was subject to larger fluctuations in the outcomes, given the smaller data sets.

“With four years under our belts and the ability to compare those four-year data sets on a rolling basis, it will be easier to analyze trends,” Jordan said. “In the past, there weren’t enough data points to determine trends.”

Jordan said Division II presidents and chancellors are now armed with more academic data upon which to base policy decisions. Not only are the graduation-rate data more robust, he said, the Division II Academic Performance Census launched two years ago tracks academic outcomes for more recent classes (such as first-year academic performance in college).

The latter will allow decision-makers to develop eligibility rules that help ensure student-athlete academic success. Even before the Academic Performance Census began, delegates at the 2008 Convention approved an increase in core-course requirements that becomes effective for the entering class of 2013.

While those efforts ought to improve graduation success even more, Jordan said even the current results refute the “dumb jock” myth.

“Division II presidents and chancellors should use these results to reflect the outstanding job their student-athletes are doing in the classroom,” he said. “These data help tell the story locally about the job that coaches, faculty and administrators are doing in moving student-athletes to where we say they should be as part of the student experience.”