MU student athlete graduation rate at 80 percent

The national rate for NCAA Division I schools is 79 percent.

By Marie Mandelberg

Published Nov. 2, 2010

MU's graduation rate for student athletes sits at 80 percent, just above the national Division I average of 79 percent, according to an National Collegiate Athletics Association report released last week. The rates apply to students that entered the school in 2003.

The NCAA calculates the Graduation Success Rate by measuring graduation in a six-year time frame from initial enrollment. Whereas the federal graduation rate tracks students from when they originally started college, the Graduation Success Rate includes transfer students.

NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson said this factor is important to accurately represent graduation rates.

"Because there is a fair amount of mobility among college students today, including student-athletes, we needed something that measured more accurately the movement among student-athletes before they graduate," Christianson said. “We’ve been collecting data among nine years. What it shows is that student athletes are graduating at the highest rates we’ve ever seen. Even to the federal rate, student athletes are graduating at a higher percentage than the entire student body.”

Joseph Scogin, assistant athletic director of Academic Services, said MU is happy with the current rate and the 11-point improvement from just a few years ago.

“I think what we have seen is a cultural change in the freshmen coming in,” Scogin said. “They now have seen the leadership of our seniors and the expectation that the students are taking care of their academic responsibilities.”

Identical to the past two years, the national Graduation Success Rate is 79 percent, the highest ever for Division I schools.

The federal graduation rate is 64 percent. The federal rate has stayed the same for the past two years, but is still the highest federal rate ever and is one point higher than the general student body. This percentage has increased by 12 points since the rate was first calculated in 1984.

“In many ways, our work has just begun,” said Walter Harrison, chairman of the NCAA Committee on Academic Performance, in a news release. “As the culture of academic reform grows stronger each year, we will see more and more improvement.”

Scogin said there are two main programs to help ensure the success of student athletes at MU. The Freshmen Transition Program helps new students make the difficult transition from high school to college while balancing a full-time job working for their sport and their academic responsibilities.

The Athletics Department also has a program called Tigers for Tomorrow that focuses on the transition from college to the business world. Scogin said students learn how to best utilize their skills and be prepared for the real world when their athletic careers end.

Scogin said these two programs are important for student athletes’ success.

The two schools with the highest Graduation Success Rate are Colgate University and the University of Notre Dame, who graduate 100 percent and 99 percent of their student athletes, respectively.

“What we’ve really seen over time is a dramatic shift in the culture within intercollegiate athletics,” Christianson said. “There is a broad and widely accepted recognition that academics are vitally important.”

The rate makes schools accountable for transfer students and includes those numbers as part of the calculation, but Scogin said MU is unable to control when a student athlete leaves the university -- whether for personal reasons or to play in a professional league.

Scogin said MU calculates a slightly different number, called the exhausted eligibility graduation rate. This number only follows the student athletes who remain at MU for all four years of eligibility. Scogin said this rate is 95 percent and the ultimate goal is to raise the number to 100 percent.

“As you continue to see us get farther along in our process, I think you’ll see our graduation rates continue to increase,” Scogin said.