Dive Summary:
- Although the NCAA boasts that athletes graduate at higher rates than non-athletes, the tool they use to back that assertion up--the Graduation Success Rate, or GSR--uses a unique formula that counts athletes who transfer in good academic standing as graduates.
- Due to differences between the GSR and the Federal Graduation Rate (which counts only full-time, first-time students who graduate from the institution they began at), the Adjusted Graduation Gap was developed and compares athletes' graduation rates by conference and sport directly to the rates of their non-athlete peers while factoring out part-time students.
- The first annual installment of the AGG, looking at the adjusted gaps for football players, was released today and shows that athletes graduate at rates much lower than non-athletes in most conferences--particularly in the Pacific 12 Conference, where football players' graduation rates were 27% lower than their non-athlete peers.
From the article:
The National Collegiate Athletic Association likes to boast that athletes graduate at rates higher than non-athletes - in some cases, significantly higher. But the tool the NCAA uses to make that assertion -- the Graduation Success Rate, or GSR -- follows a unique formula that factors out athletes who transfer in good academic standing, instead counting them as graduates. ...