During the 18-year period that the Association has collected graduation-rate information, the student-athlete rate has increased by 12 percentage points while the student body has increased by 9.

However, there are important demographic differences in the composition of the student-athlete cohort that affect the overall rate and hide important group differences. When race and gender are disaggregated, some interesting findings emerge.

Gender

Female student-athletes outperform both male student-athletes and other female students by wide margins. In the 2001-02 cohort, the most recent data, female student-athletes in Division I graduated at a 72 percent rate, compared to 65 percent for females in the student body. Male student-athletes graduated at a 57 percent rate versus 59 percent for males in the general student body.

NOTE:

When comparing student-athletes to the general student body, researchers must use the federally mandated graduation-rates formula since it is the only rate that is reported on the student body. The NCAA continues to advocate for the more accurate Graduation Success Rate to be used for all students. That rate, however, has not yet been adopted by the U.S. Department of Education.

Ethnicity

African-American student-athletes entering in 2001-02 graduated at a 53 percent rate, compared to 45 percent for African-Americans in the student body. Male athletes were 10 percentage points higher than male students (48 percent to 38 percent), while females were 16 percentage points higher than their student-body counterparts (66 to 50). Improvement for African-American female athletes has been a stunning 21 percentage points between 1984 and 2001. For African-American male athletes, the increase has been 15 percentage points.

African-Americans and academic reform

African-American student-athletes continue to outpace their same-race/gender counterparts in the student body. This table illustrates the differences seen in the most recent Division I graduation-rates report. Numbers reflect the student body federal rate, student-athlete federal rate and the Graduation Success Rate.

S.B. S-As GSR

All African-Americans 45% 53% 62%

Male African-Americans 38% 48% 57%

Female African-Americans 50% 66% 76%

Significant improvement has been made over time among African-American student-athletes when it comes to graduation rates. This table provides information comparing data from the first cohort on which rates were collected (1984) versus the most recent cohort (2001). The gains in all groups are noteworthy (from 15 to 21 percentage points). The gains for white student-athletes were much less significant during that period (from 6 to 8 percentage points).

1984 2001 Cohort Cohort

All African-American S-As 35% 53%

Male African-Americans 33% 48%

Female African-Americans 45% 66%

1984 2001 Cohort Cohort

All white S-As 59% 68%

White male S-As 55% 61%

White female S-As 66% 74%