For the first time in more than a decade, UCLA Athletics’ Graduation Success Rate fell below the previous year’s mark, according to the latest rates released Wednesday by the NCAA.
The 2015 report, which is based upon freshmen who entered college between 2005 and 2008, showed that UCLA Athletics registered a graduation rate of 86 percent, one point below both the 2013 and 2014 results.
GSR is a statistic developed by the NCAA that reflects the number of scholarship student-athletes who graduated within six years. The rate was created in response to the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Graduation Rate, which solely measures the graduation rates of first-time, full-time freshmen.
Unlike the federal rate, the GSR doesn’t penalize schools when academically eligible student-athletes transfer or go pro. A school’s rate starts with all entering freshmen, but later excludes students who leave in good academic standing and includes incoming transfer students who subsequently graduate. The federal rate ignores these movements, and automatically counts a student that leaves as an academic failure.
Because of that lack of leniency, the federal graduation rate is always lower than the NCAA’s. UCLA’s most recent federal rate four-class average was 73 percent, representing the same time period of 2005-2008.
Five UCLA sports earned 100 percent graduation rates under the NCAA’s metric: women’s basketball, women’s golf, softball, women’s tennis and men’s water polo. This was the third perfect year in a row for basketball, softball and tennis.
Rance Brown, the associate coach for the women’s tennis team, attributed much of the team’s academic success to the culture that coach Stella Sampras Webster has created.
“I really think that speaks volumes of coach Sampras – how she treats her athletes, her expectations from a student-athlete,” Brown said. “She really lays that foundation being an ex-Bruin herself. … They know that coming in, so that’s something that she really sets and it’s nice to have.”
The lowest-ranking sports on campus are baseball and men’s basketball, as both programs registered 50 percent graduation rates, though there are no penalties for falling to a certain rate. According to UCLA Athletics, many former student-athletes from these sports return to pursue their degrees within the six-year window and are then counted within the cohort.
While UCLA’s overall 86 percent mark is slightly lower than previous years, it is equal to the national average.
In the Pac-12, UCLA tied Colorado for second-highest graduation rate, while Stanford, with a near-perfect 98 percent graduation rate, leads the conference.
Compiled by Tanner Walters, Bruin Sports senior staff.