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Posted 12/7/2004 1:07 AM Updated 12/7/2004 2:29 AM

Bowl participants' graduation rates mostly below average
By Steve Wieberg and Jack Carey, USA TODAY

They might be above average on the field. But almost two-thirds of college football's 56 bowl-bound programs have player graduation rates lower than the 54% average in NCAA Division I-A, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Thirty-five programs, including five of the eight in the top-tier Bowl Championship Series, fell beneath the 54% standard, as compiled by the U.S. Department of Education and released by the NCAA.

USA TODAY used the four-year average for each school, rather than one-year grad rates, to more accurately gauge a program's classroom performance. The latest rate tracks players who entered school on scholarship from 1994-97, giving them six years to graduate.

Twenty-eight programs had four-year rates of 50% or better. Grad rates are not computed for one bowl entry, Navy, because it doesn't award athletics aid.

Highest among the bowl programs: 78% for Boston College and Syracuse, 77% for Notre Dame and 75% for Virginia. All but Syracuse, however, graduated football players at a lower rate than males in their respective student bodies.

Lowest among the bowl programs: Pittsburgh's 31%, Texas' and Texas-El Paso's 34% and Louisville's 35%. Texas' rate fell 31 points beneath the school's overall male student-body rate.

This season's brainiest bowl: the Continental Tire, matching BC and North Carolina (53%). At the other end: Tostitos Fiesta, matching Pitt and Utah (41%).

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/ ... ates_x.htm

Where does BG fall in that spectrum?

1987alum wrote:Where does BG fall in that spectrum?

I think we are at about 48 percent, maybe 50, maybe a bit more. If you will recall, we had a long discussion about this before the Motor City Bowl last year.

Those rates don't sound good when compared with some of these brainy private schools, but I seem to recall it is fairly in line with what our student body tends to do overall.

One could argue full-ride athletes ought to graduate most of the time, but I tend to think the character of the institution needs to be taken into account.

Sometimes Graduation Rates can be flawed though.

Most NCAA rates are done this way:

Take an incoming freshman class

Go 4-5 years down the line and see what % of those kids graduated

Does not take into account transfering etc.

It is a lot of semantics as to what the rates are and who counts and whatnot.

Dayons_Den wrote:Sometimes Graduation Rates can be flawed though.

Most NCAA rates are done this way:

Take an incoming freshman class

Go 4-5 years down the line and see what % of those kids graduated

Does not take into account transfering etc.

It is a lot of semantics as to what the rates are and who counts and whatnot.

Good point... and those factors wouldn't help us. Urban Meyer ran off quite a few kids when he got here.