Lobo Athletics Graduation Success Rate hits 79%
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The NCAA released the latest Division I graduation rate data, including the division’s Graduation Success Rate (GSR), and Lobo athletics fared well. UNM’s Student-Athlete Graduation Success Rate was 79%, and the four-year class average was 57%, nine points higher than the general student population. The official GSR report for the University of New Mexico can be found here.
The national GSR for the entering class of 2011 increased one point to 88 percent. The Division I Board of Directors created the GSR in response to Division I college and university presidents who wanted data that more accurately reflected the mobility of college students than the federal graduation rate. The federal rate counts any student who leaves a school as an academic failure, no matter whether he or she enrolls at another school. Also, the federal rate does not recognize students who enter school as transfer students.
The GSR formula removes from the rate student-athletes who leave school while academically eligible and includes student-athletes who transfer to a school after initially enrolling elsewhere. This calculation makes it a completer and more accurate look at student-athlete success. The federal graduation rate, however, remains the only measure to compare student-athletes with the general student body.
Four sports, men’s and women’s golf and men’s and women’s tennis, had perfect graduation success rates. Other sports with a 90% or higher GSR include swimming and diving at 94%, men’s basketball at 92%, women’s basketball at 92% and women’s cross country/track and field at 91%.
Men’s golf, men’s tennis, women’s golf and women’s’ tennis were tied for the best individual sport GSRs in the Mountain West. Men’s basketball was second, and women’s basketball and women’s cross country/track and field tied for second as well. Men’s cross country/track and field was third in the league, and women’s swimming and diving was tied for third.
The solid report comes on the heels of other academic successes for the Lobos. UNM had a program record 200 student-athletes earn Mountain West All-Academic honors, leading the league for a sixth consecutive year, and the department led the Mountain West for a seventh straight year in Mountain West Scholar-Athletes. Six student-athletes earned Google Cloud/CoSIDA Academic All-America honors in 2017-18, running UNM streak of multiple Academic All-Americans to 17 straight seasons.