Colorado State athletes show increase in graduation rate

The Graduation Success Rate of CSU student athletes is at 84 percent, up one percent from a year ago, according to the annual report released Wednesday by the NCAA.

The GSR is a measurement implemented by the NCAA to better gauge if student-athletes graduate within six years of enrollment at a school and takes into account programs that lose players to transfers. This is different from the federal graduation rate, which penalizes schools if a student-athlete transfers out of a program, even if they graduate from another institution.

For the 2008 cohort year, women’s golf and tennis were the two programs with a 100 percent GSR. Sports in the 90th percentile were swimming and diving (93), volleyball (92) and men’s track (92).

Men’s golf and men’s basketball saw the biggest spikes in graduation rates. Golf jumped to 89, up 14 points from the 2007 cohort year; basketball increased to 64 percent, a year-over-year gain of 10 percent.

CSU’s overall GSR ranks third in the Mountain West behind Utah State (87) and Air Force (88).

The federal graduation rate for CSU student-athletes across all sports is 65 percent, down from 68 percent last year.

For insight and analysis on athletics around Northern Colorado and the Mountain West, follow sports columnist Matt L. Stephens at twitter.com/mattstephens and facebook.com/stephensreporting.