Lobo Graduation Success Rate Hits 80%
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The NCAA released the latest Division I graduation rate data, including the division’s Graduation Success Rate (GSR), and Lobo athletics once again passed with flying colors. UNM’s Student-Athlete Graduation Success Rate was 80%, besting last year’s rate by 1%. UNM’s four-year class average was 54%, six points higher than the general student population.
The national GSR for the entering class of 2012 increased one point to 89 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 complete 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.
The GSR news continues a string of academic successes for the Lobos. UNM finished second in the Mountain West in All-Academic honors and the department led the Mountain West for an eighth straight year in Mountain West Scholar-Athletes. Lobo student-athletes have garnered 28 CoSIDA Academic All-America honors over the last five years, and that ranks UNM in the top 10 among all Division I institutions (351 schools). Of UNM’s 28 honorees, 18 of those have been First Team Google Cloud Academic All-America. That is tied for the second-most First Team honorees over the past five years, tied with North Dakota State and trailing only Alabama, which has had 26.
UNM’s nine honorees in the track & field/cross country program is tied for the fifth-most in the nation over that time frame, behind Stanford, Arkansas, Minnesota and Oklahoma State. The Lobo men have picked up 16 of the 28 Academic All-America honors, and that total ranks seventh among all schools as far as male student-athletes, and UNM’s women have grabbed 12 of the 28, which is tied for ninth-most. Only Stanford, Alabama, Minnesota, Navy and New Mexico have both the men and women in the top 10 nationally.