Penn State Student-Athletes Score High
In New NCAA Graduation Rate Study

6/27/96
University Park, Pa. -- Penn State student-athletes have posted their best academic performance on record, scoring significantly higher in graduation rates than the average for NCAA institutions nationally, according to a nationwide NCAA survey released today.

The survey revealed that student-athletes in Penn State's entering freshman class of 1989-90 had a graduation rate of 83 percent, compared to the 58 percent average for NCAA institutions nationally.

Penn State student-athletes have also topped their own previous best record. The 83 percent rate is the highest for Penn State athletes since the NCAA first compiled and published such reports in 1992. The previous high was 78 percent for the entering classes of 1986-87 and 1987-88.

The survey also found that student-athletes at the University Park campus outperformed other Penn State undergraduates by four percentage points. According to the survey, 79 percent was the average six-year graduation rate for all Penn State students in the class of 1989-90.

"I was exceptionally pleased to learn that Penn State's athletes had one of the highest graduation rates in the nation," said University President Graham Spanier. "We are quite proud of this level of scholarly achievement of our athletes, and I note with admiration Penn State's great tradition of recruiting athletes who are academically gifted as well. All of us can learn something from the discipline and commitment of our student-athletes."

Penn State's student-athletes also were well above national norms in football, men's basketball, and women's basketball. In football, Penn State's Nittany Lions had a graduation rate of 87 percent, compared to the 54 percent NCAA average. It was the Lions' second-best ranking in the six-year history of the survey, topped only by the 92 percent success rate for the entering class of 1987-88.

In both men's and women's basketball, Nittany Lions and Lady Lions entering in 1989-90 had a graduation rate of 100 percent, compared to the overall NCAA graduation rates of 44 percent in men's basketball and 65 percent in women's basketball.

"This is extremely good news," said John Coyle, Penn State's NCAA faculty representative. "Our goal always has been to graduate our student-athletes at a rate consistent with the rest of the University Parkstudent population. The achievement we see in the most recent set of statistics is exceptional.

"This report reinforces the work our athletic administrators, coaching staff, academic support center and, most important, the young men and women on our various teams have done to emphasize academic performance."

Continuing a six-year trend, the report showed African-America graduation rates for student-athletes well above both general Penn State student and national norms. Led by a perfect 100 percent rate for black women athletes, Nittany Lion and Lady Lion African American athletes posted a figure of 69 percent, 15 percent points better than the undergraduate population at University Park (54) and 23 points above the national average (46) for all institutions.

Female student-athletes at Penn State logged an 89 percent rate to edge their male counterparts, who graduated at an 81 percent clip.

Among student-athletes who exhausted their eligibility, the graduation rate for the survey sample soared to 91 percent.

NCAA bylaws require the University to provide graduation rate information to recruits and their parents. The NCAA provides a compilation of the data to guidance officers and high school and two-year college coaches. The NCAA bases its survey on graduation within six years of enrollment.

This is the sixth release of institutional graduation rates since national "right-to-know" legislation was passed in 1990.

While Penn State student-athletes were logging a record performance in the classroom, the Nittany Lions and Lady Lions registered some equally impressive results in athletic competition. Penn State wound up No. 8 in the Sears Directors' Cup standings, which measures success across the athletic program. It is the third consecutive Top Ten finish for Penn State, which was the top ranked team in the East.

Highlighting the athletic year were a National Championship for the men's and women's fencing team, the fourth in this decade for the fencers, and three Big Ten titles.

During the 1995-96 season, a total of 167 Penn State student-athletes received Academic All-Conference recognition and four were named first-team GTE-CoSIDA Academic All-America. The All-America quartet included: Jeff Hartings, football; Olga Kalinovskaya, fencing; Stuart Reid, soccer, and Zeynep Ton, volleyball.

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For more information, contact Kathryn M. Reith, NCAA's director of public information, (913) 339-1906.

Contacts:

Alan Janesch (814) 865-7517 (office) (814) 867-3621 (home) axj12@psu.edu

Budd Thalman (814) 865-1757 (office) (814) 231-8105 (home) lbt1@psu.edu

For other Penn State news, please visit the Penn State University Relations home page, on the World Wide Web at For related news, please visit the following Web sites:

-- Penn State's Sports Information's Official Web Page at http://www.psu.edu:80/sports/home.html

-- NCAA Scholarship and Enhancement Programs at http://sports.tamu.edu/compli/scholar.html

Academic Accomplishments Of
Penn State Student-Athletes

-- For the second consecutive year, the women's fencing team won the Academic Support Center Award as the Penn State squad with the highest overall grade-point-average.

-- In addition to the first-team Academic All-Americas, Travis Berger, men's soccer, was a third team selection and the following won election to All-District teams: Rob Austin, track; Ivan Contreras, volleyball; Pete Lisicky, basketball; Kim McGreevy, cross country; Wally Richardson, football, and Karen Van Tassel, swimming. -- Golfer Brad Kittsley was named an All-America Scholar by the Golf Coaches Association of America.

-- Cheerleader Robyn Gray won a $6,000 scholarship from the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics in the Sears Cup program;

-- The Lady Lion swimming team was ranked No. 3 nationally among Division 1 institutions in academic performance.

-- Football All-American Jeff Hartings received an $18,000 scholarship as a National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame Scholar-Athlete and was named to the College Football Association Scholar-Athlete team. Hartings also was selected a Burger King Scholar-Athlete, an accomplishment that resulted in a contribution of $25,000 to the University's general scholarship fund.

-- Nine Penn State student-athletes received Arthur Ashe, Jr., Sports Scholars Awards from Black Issues in Higher Education Magazine.

-- The Penn State men's gymnastics team was ranked No. 10 nationally, and No. 1 in the Big Ten Conference, in an evaluation of academic performance by the College Gymnastics Association.

-- The Nittany Lion wrestling team came in at No. 25 in the National Wrestling Coaches Association's All-Academic ranking of the Top 25 programs in the nation.

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