Ohio State Notches Graduation Success Rate of 86 Percent
10/16/2019 1:20:44 PM | General
COLUMBUS, Ohio — In graduation data released by the NCAA Wednesday, Ohio State student-athletes have a four-class average (2009-12) of 86 percent in the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and, in the 2012-13 cohort, have a Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) of 74 percent.
“The academic story being written by our student-athletes continues to be a very good one,” said John E. Davidson, Ohio State Faculty Athletics Representative and Professor in Germanic Languages & Literatures and Film Studies. “Like all students at Ohio State, Buckeye student-athletes continue to outperform by significant margins the national average in the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR), the measure of whether a freshman entering a college graduates from that same institution within six years. The Graduation Success Rate (GSR) for Ohio State, the measure developed to account for transfers (an ever-greater factor in collegiate athletics), remains at 86 percent for the third consecutive year, indicating that our student-athletes are performing at a very high rate. Everyone from coaches to athletics leadership to academic staff take this as a point of pride; still, the credit goes to the inspirational young men and women who come here and dedicate themselves to being the best they can be as students and athletes.”
The GSR and FGR metrics provide slightly different perspectives on graduation. The FGR 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 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. GSR begins with the federal cohort and adds transfer students, mid-year enrollees and certain non-scholarship students to the sample. Student-athletes who leave an institution while in good academic standing before exhausting athletics eligibility are removed from the cohort of their initial institution.
For the four-class average (classes entering Ohio State between 2009-12), the GSR for Buckeye student-athletes was 86 percent, with 11 Ohio State programs equal to or ahead of the national GSR for their sports. Five Buckeye programs have a 100 percent GSR: women’s basketball, men’s fencing, women’s golf, women’s tennis and women’s volleyball. Another 14 are at 85 percent or above in the GSR: baseball, men’s cross country/track and field, women’s cross country/track and field, women’s gymnastics, men’s hockey, women’s hockey, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball, men’s swimming and diving, women’s swimming and diving and men’s volleyball.
During that four-class time period, the federal rate (FGR) for Ohio State student-athletes (74 percent) was above the Division I average of 68 percent for both student-athletes and the general student body at DI institutions overall. Ten Ohio State programs have an FGR of 85 percent or better: women’s basketball, men’s fencing, women’s fencing, field hockey, women’s gymnastics, women’s hockey, women’s lacrosse, women’s swimming and diving, women’s tennis and women’s volleyball, with both women’s fencing and women’s volleyball at 100 percent. In all, 23 Ohio State programs are equal to or above the national FGR average for their sports.
