Academic Progress Rate Reports Are In

Founded in 1910, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has long worked with colleges and universities to ensure that student-athletes and their participating athletic programs meet association guidelines, with member schools held to established standards.

One standard that has gotten a lot of attention lately is the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate (APR), a measuring tool which ensures that student-athletes are academically prepared and complete college. The APR was instituted in 2005 to provide benchmarks for all Division 1 athletic programs.

Division 1 schools typically include high profile athletic programs offering scholarships such as Johns Hopkins in lacrosse, Notre Dame in football, Stanford in baseball, etc. Each program at participating schools is graded annually with a benchmark grade of 925 established. This score is the equivalent to a 60% graduation rate, a low benchmark, but higher than what many programs had been achieving. Schools which fail to meet APR standards can lose academic scholarships, effectively impacting how well a program does on the field or on the court.

Schools recently received their most recent APRs from the NCAA and the news isn’t particularly pleasing, especially for those programs which are failing. The reports being delivered include scores for the 2006-2007 academic year as well as a comprehensive four-year report and score.

Failing programs are too many to mention but include Akron, San Diego State, and Florida International in football; Colorado State, UAB, and Liberty in men’s basketball; and Florida Atlantic in baseball. With these latest results some schools have lost scholarships with some possibly having their sport banned until academic improvement has been made.

Not all of the news is grim as some schools are meeting standards including Yale which not only exceeded benchmarks but saw 28 of its 29 athletic programs finish in the top ten percentile APR.