INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA released its annual Division I Graduation Success Rate (GSR) data this month and UTSA has reported a GSR of 82%, marking the seventh straight year the department has posted a GSR of 80% or better.
UTSA's 82% GSR comes on the heels of earning a department-record GSR of 83% in the previous report after two consecutive years with an 82% GSR. The department has shown an increase in its GSR from 66% nine years ago reports to now seven in a row with a GSR of 80% or better.
Nine UTSA sport programs logged a GSR of 82% or better in the latest report. Four teams registered a perfect GSR in the latest report: men's golf, women's basketball, women's tennis and volleyball. Additionally, the baseball (94%), women's cross country/track & field (84%), football (83%), women's golf (83%) and softball (89%) programs each posted a GSR over 80%.
Figures released in this latest report reflect graduation numbers among student-athletes who entered school in 2014. When the Graduation Success Rate was created more than two decades ago, then-NCAA President Myles Brand set an aspirational goal of 80%. Student-athletes first surpassed that goal with the release of the rates in 2011. Since its inception 20 years ago, Graduation Success Rates for Division I student-athletes overall have increased 16 points.
Since the creation of the GSR, Division I members have adopted academic rule and policy changes intended to improve the academic performance of student-athletes. Those changes have had a clear and resounding impact: over the past 20 years, 37,450 more college athletes graduated than would have had the GSR remained at 74%, which was the GSR rate the year it was introduced. In 2021 alone, the increase accounts for 3,945 more student-athlete graduates.
NCAA legislation requires member schools to report enrollment (of both student body and student-athletes receiving athletics aid) and student body and student-athlete graduation rates to the NCAA each year. The NCAA then publishes reports on behalf of the member schools to comply with federal reporting requirements.
The student-athlete graduation rate calculated directly based on the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Graduation Rates Survey, which is the methodology the U.S. Department of Education requires, is the proportion of first-year, full-time student-athletes who entered a school on athletics aid and graduated from that institution within six years. This federal rate does not account for students who transfer from their original college or university and graduate elsewhere; they are considered nongraduates at both the college they left and the one from which they eventually graduate.
The NCAA GSR differs from the federal calculation in two important ways. First, the GSR holds colleges accountable for those student-athletes who transfer to their school. Second, the GSR does not penalize colleges whose student-athletes leave the institution in good academic standing.
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