NCAA athlete graduation rates up

By Catherine Bratic     11/13/08 6:00pm

Rice student-athletes are graduating at higher rates than last year's figures, according to information from the National Collegiate Athletic Association released last month. Rice ranked seventh of 119 schools with an 84 percent six-year graduation rate and eighth with a 92 percent four-year graduation rate. In combined categories, Rice ranked sixth in the NCAA and first in Conference USA.There are two major athlete graduation rates reported by the NCAA, calculated slightly differently from each other to either include or exclude late arrivals and transfers in and out of the university. The first and most commonly compared is the Graduation Success Rate, which includes scholarship athletes who transfer into the university but not those who transfer out of the university in good standing. In this category, Rice ranked eighth out of 119 football bowl subdivision institutions, formerly the members of the NCAA Division I A. Compared to the nationwide 78 percent graduation rate, 92 percent of Rice student-athletes graduated that year.

Rice also ranked seventh of 119 schools with an 84 percent graduation rate in the Federal Measure, which only includes athletes who enter in the fall of their freshman year, and allows them six years to graduate. Rice's overall student body graduation rate, which is calculated the same way, was 91 percent, compared to a 61 percent average in the rest of the NCAA.

The rankings, which have consistently placed Rice in the top 10 in previous years, reflect the environment the university has set up for athletes' success, Associate Director of Academic Advising for Athletes Julie Griswold said.

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"The student athletes at Rice are really committed," she said. "They have a dual role: They're committed to academics and athletics. And Rice is a place that wants people to be successful. The peer pressure is to do well."

Griswold said the university is successful as a whole because athletes are generally integrated into the student body.

"Even though there's a separation that's perceived on this campus, in comparison to a lot of other institutions, athletes at Rice are really pretty well integrated," she said. "You go to class with student athletes, and they live across the hall from you."

Since the high graduation rates of student athletes are almost a given in any year, some teams have shifted their focus away from graduation to grades.

The women's basketball team was challenged last year by head coach Greg Williams to bring their grade point averages up to a 3.0, an accomplishment which he said was within their power to achieve given the team's record of hard work.

"We just challenged our team to try to compete as hard in the classroom as they were in the basketball courts," Williams said.

He said the team achieved its goal, and he expects their academic success to help them once they leave Rice.

"In today's competitive market world, if you can play a team sport and if you can have a 3.0 when you graduate from Rice, your employment opportunities will greatly increase," Williams said. "And that's something that I know from experience, but a lot of times they don't know."

Rice's football team, which was ranked 10th this year in the NCAA's graduation, also boasted its highest team GPA in at least 25 years.

Head coach David Bailiff said the team was responding to new academic challenges in addition to athletic ones.

"They come to Rice because they want to exceed athletically and academically," he said. "When you raise your expectations, they keep up.

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