Rice Student Athletes Shine in Latest NCAA Graduation Rate Study
10/27/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 27, 2010
Rice University student-athletes continue to be among the national leaders in the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate studies, according to the latest set of figures released by the organization on Wednesday.
| NCAA GSR Rates (2000-03 Freshmen Classes) | |
| All Student-Athletes | |
| School | Pct. |
| Notre Dame | 99% |
| Duke | 97% |
| Northwestern | 97% |
| Boston College | 96% |
| Navy | 96% |
| Rice | 95% |
| African-American Student-Athletes | |
| Notre Dame | 98% |
| Northwestern | 96% |
| Rice | 94% |
| Football (National) | |
| Notre Dame | 96% |
| Duke | 95% |
| Northwestern | 95% |
| Rice | 93% |
| Football (Texas) | |
| Rice | 93% |
| SMU | 76% |
| TCU | 71% |
| Texas Tech | 69% |
| Baylor | 64% |
| North Texas | 62% |
| Texas A&M | 57% |
| UTEP | 57% |
| Houston | 51% |
| Texas | 49% |
The Owls ranked sixth among all schools who compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), having graduated 95% of all student-athletes who enrolled as freshmen from 2000-2001 through 2003-04. Rice was third among all schools with a 94% graduation rate among its African-American student-athletes, while Rice's football team was ranked fourth among all football teams, with a graduation rate of 93% over the same period.
"When a young man or woman accepts the offer to compete for Rice, they can be certain that their academic success is as important and vital to our mission as is their efforts in athletic competition," Rice Director of Athletics Rick Greenspan said. "These numbers from the NCAA confirm that one does not come at the expense of the other. This is a clear message to future Owls of our total commitment to our student-athletes."
"We have a great support system in place for our student-athletes," Rice head football coach David Bailiff said. "We make a commitment to the parents of each recruit that that their son's academic success is a priority. We fully expect that each of our future recruits will maintain this level of success."
The overall Graduation Success Rate for student-athletes who began college in 2003 is 79 percent. While this rate matches the GSR for the past two years and continues to be the highest ever in Division I, it has risen five points in nine years of GSR collection
This year marks the ninth year of GSR data that have been collected. The NCAA began collecting GSR data with the entering freshman class of 1995. The latest entering class for which data are available is 2003.
The Graduation Success Rate was developed by the NCAA as part of its academic reform initiative to more accurately measure the academic success of Division I student-athletes by better accounting for the many different academic paths followed by today's college students. Unlike the federal graduation rate, the GSR holds institutions accountable for transfer students. The GSR also accounts for midyear enrollees and is calculated for every sport.
By counting incoming transfer students and midyear enrollees, the GSR increases the total number of student-athletes tracked for graduation by more than 36 percent. Under the GSR calculation, institutions are not penalized for outgoing transfer students who leave in good academic standing. These outgoing transfers are essentially passed to the receiving institution's GSR cohort.
The NCAA also calculates the federal graduation rate for student-athletes, because it is the only rate to compare student-athletes to the general student body. There are almost 105,000 student-athletes included in the most recent four classes using the GSR methodology, as compared to just slightly fewer than 77,000 in the federal rate.
Rice also ranked sixth overall in the federal graduation rate for all student-athletes (83%), while Rice's overall student body was ranked fifth (93%). The Owls posted the highest federal rate among African-American students (89%), while the football team was ranked fifth (84%).