The NCAA is committed to the quality education of student-athletes; it’s fundamental to our mission and values. That commitment is expressed through efforts to improve student academic success, strengthen campus responsibility and increase overall accountability.
STUDENT SUCCESS
- Prospective NCAA Division I student-athletes must meet increasing academic standards in high school to first be eligible to compete in college sports.
- These standards include successfully completing 14 core courses in high school. That figure will rise to 16 core courses for students entering college in Fall 2008.
- Research shows the overall best predictor of academic success in college is a combination of grades in high school core courses and college prep test scores. If looking at just one component of academic success in higher education, GPA in core courses is the single best predictor.
- Once in college, student-athletes must make steady progress toward earning their degree.
- Student-athletes entering college are required to complete 40 percent of their degree by the end of their second year, 60 percent by the end of year three, and 80 percent by the end of year four.
- All student-athletes must earn a minimum of six hours per semester (or quarter) in order to remain eligible the next semester.
CAMPUS RESPONSIBILITY
- College presidents mandated the development of a system of campus accountability in academic reform, which takes into account the various missions of NCAA colleges and universities.
- Accountability is tied to meaningful measures of academic performance. These include the Academic Progress Rate (APR), the NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR), and/or federal graduation rate data.
- The APR provides a real-time “snapshot” of a team’s academic success each semester by looking at current academic progress of every student-athlete.
- The APR includes eligibility, retention, and graduation as factors in the rate calculation and provides a much clearer picture of the current academic culture in each sport.
- The GSR looks back at historical academic success by measuring graduation of all student-athletes, including transfer students and students who leave campus in good academic standing.
- The federal graduation rate does not account for transfer student-athletes.
INCREASED ACCOUNTABILITY
- Each Division I sports team receives an APR score. An APR of 925 (out of 1,000) equals roughly a 60 percent Graduation Success Rate.
- High-performing teams receive public recognition from the NCAA.
- Teams that score below 925 and have a student-athlete who failed academically and left school can lose scholarships.
- Teams can lose up to 10 percent of their scholarships each year for poor academic performance under the immediate penalty structure.
- Starting this fall, teams with APR scores below 900 face additional sanctions under the historical penalty structure.
- First-year sanction is a public warning letter for poor performance.
- Second-year sanctions include restrictions on scholarships, recruiting and practice time.
- Third-year sanctions results in loss of postseason competition for the team (such as a bowl game or the men’s basketball tournament).
- Four consecutive years of poor academic performance results in restricted membership status for an institution. This means the school will not be considered a Division I college or university.
- The NCAA developed a squad-size adjustment, similar to a margin of error in polling, for the beginning years of academic reform to account for the limited amount of data. With the fourth year of APR data in 2007-08, the squad-size adjustment will be eliminated.