Academic Progress Rate - Adjustments

Adjustments

The NCAA does adjust APR, on a student-by-student basis, in two circumstances. One exception that can be made, is for student-athletes who leave prior to graduation, while in good academic standing, to pursue a professional career. Another is for student-athletes who transfer to another school while meeting minimum academic requirements and student-athletes who return to graduate at a later date. Compiling college athletes’graduation rates stemmed partly from press coverage that 76 to 92 percent of professional athletes lacked college degrees and from revelations that some were functionally illiterate. In the 2010–11 cycle, the NCAA granted nearly 700 APR adjustments in the latter category, out of a total of over 6,400 Division I teams. (The APR is calculated based only on scholarship players already, not walk-ons) Numerous other sources, from sports conferences to schools themselves, document much lower graduation rates for college football and men’s basketball and baseball players than for general students.Compounding matters is that only about 57 percent of all college students complete a bachelor’s degree in six years.