October 26, 2004

College Football Graduation Rates Up

Today's article in the USA Today documents the improvement in graduation rates -- a 9 percentage point improvement in graduation rates over 4 years. Some of the highlights:

Among BCS ranked teams, Virginia leads with a 75% football graduation rate, compared to 90% for the overall student body.

Texas is at the bottom of the BCS ranked teams, with just a 34% grad rate compared to 65% for the overall student body.

Boise State and UTEP are interesting. Boise State graduates 54% of its football players, compared with just 24% of non-football players. UTEP graduates 34% of football players, and just 21% of non-football. For these schools, the football program seems to be a real boost to student retention and graduation -- and you have to wonder just what the rest of the student body is doing there.

Compared to the basketball programs, Div-1A football programs are doing much better -- football players graduate at a rate just 4 points off the rest of the student body, whereas the gap for men's basketball programs is 13 points (and much much worse for the final 4 programs).

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