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By Roy Grimes
The NCAA Division I student-athlete graduation rate is at 80 percent, compared to 27 percent for all students, according to the Athletics Committee’s annual report.
The committee met three times during the year and discussed the issue of graduation rates. CSU volleyball player Khaliah Watts says, “It’s not that we are smarter. We just have more reason to try.”
The NCAA tabulates the percentage of athletes who graduated within six years. That percentage is figured by using students with an average of four classes per semester. The report does not consider any reasons why an athlete did not graduate within that time, such as marriage, time off to travel/work, or inability to compete at a Division I level.
The NCAA report is not the only measure of academic accomplishments, says the report. Women’s softball has ranked in the top 20 GPA’s at a national level twice. Women’s basketball and wrestling have ranked once. The cumulative GPA’s were 3.0 for female athletes and 2.71 for male athletes.