Hogs see increase in graduation rates
FAYETTEVILLE — The six-year graduation rate was 85% for athletes who enrolled at the University of Arkansas between 2010-13, according to an adjusted rate released by the NCAA on Tuesday.
The score of 85 was Arkansas’ highest in the NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate (GSR), one point higher than a year ago when the Razorbacks had an overall score of 84.
GSR is a calculation of how many athletes graduate within six academic years of college enrollment and often looks much different than federal graduation rates because of differences in how the two rates are calculated.
Unlike the federal rate, the GSR score does not penalize a university for athletes who do not graduate from there because of a transfer or to pursue a professional career — as long as the athletes leave the university in good academic standing. Also unlike the federal rate, GSR takes into consideration whether or not a student graduated after transferring.
The federal graduation rate for Arkansas athletes is 57% in the same reporting period as the GSR that was released Tuesday.
Although its overall GSR score is 12th among SEC programs, Arkansas has began to rival most other conference institutions in the GSR calculation. The Razorbacks’ latest overall GSR score is 25 points higher than their score of 60 in the first GSR report in 2005.
Arkansas was one of 12 SEC universities that improved their GSR score or remained the same as last year. Missouri’s score fell two points from last year and Ole Miss fell by one point.
Vanderbilt, the conference’s only private university, had the highest overall GSR score of 97, followed by South Carolina (95), Alabama (93) and Kentucky (92).
After ranking last in the GSR in the SEC’s two most high-profile sports two years ago, the Arkansas football and men’s basketball programs have shown drastic improvement in their scores. The football team improved its score by nine points this year to 76, and the basketball team had a 15-point improvement to a score of 77.
The football score is the highest in the program’s history and ranks 10th in the SEC. The men’s basketball score is also a program record and is 11th among SEC programs.
“We’ve improved dramatically over the last decade, and that’s a testament to our student-athletes that have been a part of that over the past decade, to our academic staff, to our coaches, to everybody involved,” UA Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek said. “It takes a village to graduate student-athletes. But first and foremost it starts with the student-athletes that our coaches recruit and bring here to our institution. And then we provide them the tools and the resources that they need to be successful academically.”
A new GSR score is an average of each program’s last four six-year rates. The way GSR is calculated means new scores can be a reflection of the program under long-departed coaches, and current trends might not be perceivable for a decade.
The latest football GSR figure reflects the graduation status of football athletes who were newcomers on teams coached by Bobby Petrino, John L. Smith and Bret Bielema between 2010-13.
The basketball figures are for players who were newcomers between the 2010-11 and 2013-14 seasons on teams coached by John Pelphrey and Mike Anderson.
Arkansas baseball had its highest-ever score of 89, which was three points higher than its report a year ago and 35 points higher than three years ago. The figure reflects the rate for newcomers on the Razorbacks’ 2011-14 teams coached by Dave Van Horn and is the fifth-highest score this year by an SEC baseball team.
Five Arkansas programs — gymnastics, soccer, men’s tennis, women’s golf and volleyball — had perfect GSR scores of 100 in the latest reporting period.
“From t he t i me s t udent-athletes arrive on campus, we work with them to sustain progress in their academic journey on the path to graduation,” Yurachek said. “We have made tremendous progress and must continue to focus on our goal of ensuring every student-athlete, who exhausts his or her athletic eligibility, leaves our program with a degree from the University of Arkansas.”
GSR is one of two annual report cards issued by the NCAA to track academic trends in college athletics. The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is released each spring and focuses on athletes’ eligibility and retention during four-year and single-year periods.