Oct. 26, 2012

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 Thursday.

The Owls ranked sixth overall among all schools who compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), having graduated 95% of all student-athletes who enrolled as freshmen from 2002-2003 through 2005-06. Rice led schools with a 100% graduation rate among its African-American student-athletes, while Rice's football team was ranked fifth among all football teams, with a graduation rate of 93% over the same period. Rice's female student-athletes ranked fifth in the country with a 98% graduation rate.

Rice led the way among Texas FBS schools, posting a GSR 14 points higher than TCU. The Owls had a 12 percentage point lead over second-place UCF among Conference USA schools.

The overall national Graduation Success Rate for student-athletes who began college in 2005 is 80 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 seven points in 11 years of GSR collection.

This year marks the 11th 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 2005.

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 10 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 90,000 student-athletes included in the most recent four classes using the GSR methodology, as compared to more than 80,000 in the federal rate.

Rice ranked fifth overall in the federal graduation rate for all student-athletes (83%), while Rice's overall student body was ranked sixth (92%). Rice's female student-athletes rank third in the nation with a federal rate of 92 percent. The Owls again posted the highest federal rate among African-American students (95%), while the football team was ranked fourth (85%).