NCAA reports graduation rate at 71%

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

he NCAA released figures Sept. 26 showing that the University is graduating its athletes at a significantly higher rate than the national average. The campus sees 71 percent of its athletes graduate, 11 percent more than student-athletes nationwide and 12 percent more than its general student population.

     The NCAA figure describes the number of students starting college in the 1995-96 school year who had graduated after six years and who had received athletic
financial aid or signed a National Letter of Intent.

     "We are very pleased with what our student-athletes are doing in the classroom," Athletics director Ian McCaw said.

     The overall campus graduation rate for that year was 58.7 percent, slightly higher than the national average of 58 percent.

     Davidson College in North Carolina led the Division I-AA and I-AAA category with a 91 percent graduation rate among its student-athletes. Rice University in Houston led Division I also with a 91 percent rate. And Regis College in Weston led the Division III schools and the University of Hawaii at Hilo led Division II schools by graduating all of their student-athletes who entered in 1995.

     The national average for student-athletes was 60 percent, up two percent from the previous year.