Gophers athletes posted another program-record graduation rate and the second-highest mark in the Big Ten, at 94%, as measured by the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate (GSR), the school announced Wednesday.
The latest GSR figures focused on the six-year period of athletes that entered college as freshmen in 2012. Northwestern led the Big Ten with a GSR of 98%.
The Gophers posted a 93% GSR last fall, then a program record.
"Our student-athletes continue to graduate at a very high rate," JT Bruett, director of the university's Lindahl Academic Center, said in the news release. "We are very fortunate to have coaches and athletic administrators that reinforce the importance of a college degree for all our athletes."
The GSR shows the percentage of athletes who earn a college degree within six years of entering school, and includes athletes who transfer into the school but excludes athletes who transfer from the university in good academic standing.
According to the Gophers, six women's programs posted a 100% GSR in the latest report: basketball, golf, gymnastics, hockey, soccer and tennis. Seven Gophers men's programs posted GSRs of 90% or higher, with gymnastics and tennis achieving 100% rates.
The Gophers are ahead of the national average, 89%. That's an increase of 1 point from last year's all-time high and nearly 10 points above the 80% goal set by the NCAA in 2002. Several numbers stood out nationally: The Football Bowl Subdivision percentage jumped 3 points to 82%; black football players in the FBS hit 78%, also a 3-point increase; for the first time, every women's sport finished with a grad rate of at least 90%.
Division I men's basketball players saw a 2-point drop to 79% overall while the percentage of black players fell to 79%, a 3-point decline.
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