ASU students can’t seem to hide from an outside stereotype — an overall lack of intelligence. Student athletes in general suffer the same perception, but a new report released Tuesday by the NCAA gives students that fit into both categories the statistics to battle the stigma.
ASU posted an all-time high Graduation Success Rate at 79 percent for all student-athletes, based on the students who were freshmen between 2001 and 2004.
Women’s sports carried the load with a 94 percent GSR, good for second in the Pac-12 behind Stanford (at 97 percent), and the men tallied a 66 percent GSR. ASU finished fifth overall in the Pac-12, only one percentage point behind Oregon and four percentage points behind UCLA and Washington.
Five ASU teams — men and women’s swim and dive, women’s track, women’s cross-country, women’s tennis, and volleyball — led the Pac-12 with a 100 percent GSR.
The perceptions match up with those five teams. These athletes are stereotypically expected to be intelligent, and they finish near the top of the conference in overall GPA each year.
The surprises come from the supposedly “dumb jock” sports. The ASU football team has a 64 percent GSR, and while that is much lower than other ASU sports, it ranks third among all Pac-12 football teams. Only Stanford (87 percent GSR) and Washington (76 percent) rank higher.
Jean Boyd, the associate athletic director for the Office of Student-Athlete Development, told ASU News the “graduation success rate is the most significant measure of student-athlete academic achievement.”
“We are just one percentage point away from our goal of reaching 80 percent and are working hard to reach that goal,” Boyd said.
The stigma that comes with being an ASU student, let alone a student-athlete at the University, is fading. ASU’s GSR has increased for four consecutive years, and the University as a whole has grown as a research hub.
Yes, there are examples of ASU athletes struggling with their education. Jahii Carson, the top men’s basketball recruit, is still struggling to become academically cleared by the NCAA.
Yet these statistics show that cases like Carson are becoming the exception rather than the norm. The University plans to succeed both on and off the field. Even though ASU struggles from year to year to be competitive on the field, its consistent push to be successful academically has paid off.
“Results measured by graduation and competitive successes are keystones to defining Sun Devil Athletics,” said Lisa Love, vice president of university athletics.
With four years of rising GSRs, the University has improved the stigma that ASU and student-athletes face as a whole. The statistics are in their favor.
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