By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Tech student-athletes posted impressive scores in the latest Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) reports, released Wednesday afternoon by the NCAA. Tech has not only maintained a high level of success in the school's graduation rates overall, the student-athlete graduation rates continue to rank higher than those for the general TTU student body.
The current report gives graduation information about students and student-athletes entering in 2011. This is the most recent graduating class for which the required six years of information is available.
"We are proud that our student-athletes and coaches continue to make academic success a top priority," said Mark Wilson, TTU Director of Athletics, "and they understand the important role that athletics plays in serving the university and the surrounding community."
Posting an overall GSR of 85 for the second straight year, the numbers shed light on how well Tech compares with other public institutions within the state, with schools in the Ohio Valley Conference, and nationally when compared with all Division I programs. Tech's GSR mark of 85 represents the highest in school history, and displays the continued and sustained growth by Golden Eagle student-athletes over the past several years.
In a head-to-head comparison with all other NCAA Division I schools, eight of Tech's 14 programs matched or exceeded the national FGR average of their respective sports.
"The results of this most recent NCAA report speak to the diligence of our student-athletes," Wilson said. "Our students are coming in better prepared when they enter Tennessee Tech, and they are staying on track to earn their degrees."
The GSR and FGR numbers of Tech's student-athletes continue to shine when compared with the numbers for the general student body. Thirteen of Tech's 14 athletic programs received a higher FGR than Tech's general student body graduation rate.
What makes the result for Golden Eagle student-athletes even more credible is the fact that Tennessee Tech's general student body boasted the fourth-highest graduation rate among all Division I public institutions in the state, finishing behind only the University of Tennessee, the University of Tennessee at Martin and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
"We never take these numbers for granted, and once again we are extremely proud of the results," Wilson said. "Tennessee Tech's student-athletes continue to do a tremendous job in balancing the demands of both academics and athletics.
"If you layer the GSR on top of the statewide graduation rates, we can say that Tennessee Tech is among the leaders in the state for graduating our student-athletes," Wilson pointed out.
Tennessee Tech has a GSR of 85 for the six-year period tracking students who entered in 2011. The school's GSR was 78 in 2011, 79 in 2012, 80 in 2013, 79 in 2014, 81 in 2015, 83 in 2016 and 85 in 2017.
The 64 percent Federal Graduation Rate for Tech's student-athletes is 15 percentage points higher than the FGR of Tech's general student body, which is 49 percent for the 2011 incoming freshmen in the report. Tech's FGR mark ranks the institution in the upper half of the Ohio Valley Conference. In the state of Tennessee, Tech's FGR ranked in the upper half overall and third among public institutions.
"When you compare the size of the staff devoted to academic support for student-athletes at Tech with the other state schools, the results are even more impressive," Wilson said. "While a couple of our sister institutions within the state of Tennessee have considerably more academic advisors in their athletic academic support staff, we are achieving these results with a staff of four. That speaks volumes for the job that [Assistant A.D. for Academics and Student Welfare] Leveda Dexter, her staff members and our coaches do with stressing the importance of academic work to our student-athletes."
The women's basketball team achieved a rank of 100 on the GSR, the highest mark in program history. The women's basketball team also led the Ohio Valley Conference, as did the Golden Eagle football team. Other teams in the top-five in the league were men's tennis, women's cross country, track & field and women's soccer. Ranking in the top-five in state in GSR were football, women's basketball, soccer and softball.
The latest GSR report reflects several other positive trends including a continued high rate of students in athletics making the Athletic Director's Honor Roll, high grade point average earned by Golden Eagle student-athletes, multiple CoSIDA Academic All-District honors and multiple Academic All-Americans.
During the past several years, Tech's student-athletes have posted the highest combined GPA ever achieved at the University, earned a combined 3.0 GPA in 19 straight semesters, and filled the Athletic Director's Honor Roll with more than 200 student-athletes in 15 of the last 18 semesters.
"These most recent reports are continued good news for Tennessee Tech Athletics," Wilson said. "It verifies in numbers that we are successfully fulfilling our mission of graduating our student-athletes. One thing must not be forgotten… first and foremost, we are here to educate. As always, our goal is for every student-athlete to leave Tennessee Tech with a diploma in one hand and a championship ring on the other."
The NCAA's Graduation Success Rate includes transfer students and student-athletes who leave in good academic standing, unlike the federal rate, which includes only incoming freshmen and does not count transfers. The GSR and federal rate calculations measure graduation over six years from initial college enrollment.
Complete NCAA Graduation Success Rate data for all Division I institutions can be accessed at www.ncaa.org.
Graduation Success Rate (GSR)
Graduation Success Rate (GSR) begins with the federal cohort, and adds transfer students, mid-year enrollees, and non-scholarship students (in specified cases) to the sample. Student-athletes who leave an institution while in good academic standing before exhausting their athletics eligibility are removed from the cohort of their initial institution. This rate provides a more complete and accurate look at actual student-athlete success by taking into account the full variety of participants in Division I athletics and tracking their academic outcomes.
Federal Graduation Rate (FGR)
Federal Graduation Rate assesses only first-time full-time freshmen in a given cohort and only counts them as academic successes if they graduate from their institution of initial enrollment within a six-year period. It makes no accommodation for transfers into or out of an institution. The rate is very limited because it ignores the large number of transfer students in higher education, but it is still the only rate that allows a direct comparison between student-athletes and the general student body.
