Division II schools recognized for academic excellence

Twenty-seven Division II member schools will be honored as part of the Presidents’ Award for Academic Excellence program, now in its fifth year, for achieving four-year Academic Success Rates of 90 percent or higher.

For the first time, the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia led Division II with an Academic Success Rate of 99 percent, followed closely by Saint Michael’s College, Point Loma Nazarene University and Bentley University, all of which achieved a 98 percent ASR.

For the second straight year, the Northeast-10 led Division II’s 24 conferences in ASR rates, with five athletics programs posting scores of 90 percent or more.

“We are pleased by the increasing number of Division II schools whose student-athletes are earning Academic Success Rates of 90 percent or higher,” said Judy Bense, president of the University of West Florida and chair of the Division II Presidents Council. “These schools and their students demonstrate the utmost dedication to success in the classroom and on the field, and we are proud of their efforts.”

The Academic Success Rate is the percentage of student-athletes who graduate within six years of initial enrollment in college and includes virtually all Division II student-athletes, including transfers and those not receiving athletics scholarships.

The Division II ASR also captures about 51 percent more college athletes than the federal graduation rate. Unlike the federal graduation rate, the ASR also counts student-athletes who transfer to a school after initial enrollment elsewhere and removes from the rate student-athletes who leave school while academically eligible. The national ASR is 71 percent for student-athletes who entered college from 2005 through 2008.

Regardless of which measure is used, Division II college athletes graduate at a higher rate than the general student body. The federal rate for the 2008 entering class of student-athletes was 55 percent, compared to 49 percent for the general student body.