Graduation Rate Minority Student Football Athletes: What college athletic teams enroll high numbers of minority athletes and graduate them in six years? Over the next few weeks, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education will present graduation rate data, highlighting the successes or failures of major Division I sports teams, starting with football.
Methodology: Most of the data that will be presented comes from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the National Center for Education Statistics on enrollment and six-year graduation rates at major institutions, broken down by sport and race, as self-reported by students. The 2002 numbers reflect how many students who enrolled in 1996 graduated by 2002. The data only reflect those who have received athletic financial aid. IPEDS did not have graduation data for all Division I teams. For example, most Ivy League institutions did not report student-athlete graduation data because they do not offer athletics aid.
The most recent data, graduation rates from 2006, can be found with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which receives information directly from schools and makes it available faster than the NCES. This week, the NCAA released new data on Graduation Success Rates (GSR) for schools by race, ethnicity, sport and gender but not raw enrollment numbers.
