Tech student-athletes maintain impressive marks in latest NCAA Graduation Success Rate report

By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Tech student-athletes posted impressive scores in the latest Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) reports, released Wednesday afternoon by the NCAA. Tech has not only maintained a high level of success in the school's graduation rates overall, but the student-athlete graduation rates also continue to rank higher than those for the general TTU student body.

The current report gives graduation information about students and student-athletes entering in 2015. This is the most recent graduating class for which the required six years of information is available.

"Our student-athletes and coaches truly understand the important role athletics plays in serving the University and the surrounding community," Tech Director of Athletics Mark Wilson said. "They continue to make academic success a top priority and the results of this most recent NCAA report speak to their diligence in the classroom. Our students are coming in better prepared when they enter Tennessee Tech, and they are staying on track to earn their degrees."

With an 89, Tech posted a GSR of 80 or higher for the eighth straight year and ninth time in the past 10 years. The 89 marked the highest GSR for Tennessee Tech since the NCAA started reporting the information.

The numbers shed light on how well Tech compares with other public institutions within the state, with schools in the Ohio Valley Conference, and nationally when compared with all Division I programs. The impressive GSR mark of 89 displays the continued and sustained growth by Golden Eagle student-athletes over the past several years. Tech ranked fifth in the state among public institutions in GSR.

The GSR and FGR numbers of Tech's student-athletes continue to shine when compared with the numbers for the general student body. Eight of Tech's 14 athletic programs received a higher FGR than Tech's general student body graduation rate.

What makes the result for Golden Eagle student-athletes even more impressive, is the fact that Tennessee Tech's general student body boasted the second-highest graduation rate among all Division I public institutions in the state, finishing behind only the University of Tennessee.

"We never take these numbers for granted, and once again we are extremely proud of the results," Wilson said. "Tennessee Tech's student-athletes continue to do a tremendous job in balancing the rigorous demands of both academics and athletics."

Tennessee Tech has a GSR of 89 for the six-year period tracking students who entered in 2015. The school's GSR was 79 in 2012, 80 in 2013, 79 in 2014, 81 in 2015, 83 in 2016, 85 in both 2017 and 2018, 87 in 2019, 84 in 2020, and 85 in 2021.

The 63 percent one-year Federal Graduation Rate for Tech's student-athletes is three percentage points higher than the FGR of Tech's general student body, which is 60 percent for the 2015 incoming freshmen in the report. Tech's one-year FGR mark ranks the institution tied for fourth in the Ohio Valley Conference. In the state of Tennessee, Tech's one-year FGR ranked tied for sixth overall and tied for third among public institutions. Tech's four-year FGR came in at 62 percent, six points higher than the TTU student body's mark of 56 percent.

"When you compare the size of the staff devoted to academic support for student-athletes at Tech with the other state schools, the results take on an even larger impact," Wilson said. "While a few of our sister institutions within the state of Tennessee have considerably more academic advisors in their athletic academic support staff, we are achieving these results with a staff of four. That speaks volumes for the job that [Assistant A.D. for Academics and Student Welfare] Dr. Leveda Birdwell, her staff members, and our coaches do with stressing the importance of academic work to our student-athletes."

Birdwell added, "Words can't express how proud I am of our student-athletes at Tennessee Tech. They truly want to succeed, not just in their respective sport programs, but in the classroom as well, and they strive to be their best at the highest level. When we meet with prospective student-athletes, we talk extensively about the importance of being successful in the classroom at Tech. I tell our student-athletes, if they are performing well academically, they will naturally perform better athletically because they are not stressed about their school work."

The women's golf team achieved a rank of 100 on both the GSR and FGR for the second straight year and the second time in history. For the third consecutive year, both the softball team and volleyball team delivered GSR marks of 100. It marked the third time ever with a perfect score for the softball program and the 10^th time overall for the volleyball program. The tennis team also boasted a GSR of 100 for the 12^th time in program history while the men's golf team earned a 100 in the GSR for the fifth time.

Each of the women's golf, softball, tennis, volleyball, men's golf, and tennis teams led the Ohio Valley Conference and state of Tennessee in GSR. The football and women's cross country and track & field programs also produced top-three showings in the league.

The latest GSR report reflects several other positive trends including a continued high rate of students in athletics making the Athletic Director's Honor Roll, high grade point average earned by Golden Eagle student-athletes, and numerous academic honors across all sports programs.

During the past several years, Tech's student-athletes have posted the highest combined GPA ever achieved at the University, earned a combined 3.0 GPA in 27 straight semesters, and filled the Athletic Director's Honor Roll with more than 200 student-athletes in 22 of the last 26 semesters. This includes each of the top-six totals of student-athletes on the AD Honor Roll in program history over the past six semesters.

Just last week, tennis student-athlete Jun Sasagawa and women's cross country and track & field student-athlete Ruby Wyles were recognized as OVC Scholar-Athletes, becoming the seventh and eighth Golden Eagles to earn the league's top honor in the past seven years.

Complete NCAA Graduation Success Rate data for all Division I institutions can be accessed at www.ncaa.org.

Graduation Success Rate (GSR)
Graduation Success Rate (GSR) begins with the federal cohort and adds transfer students, mid-year enrollees, and non-scholarship students (in specified cases) to the sample. Student-athletes who leave an institution while in good academic standing before exhausting their athletics eligibility are removed from the cohort of their initial institution. This rate provides a more complete and accurate look at actual student-athlete success by taking into account the full variety of participants in Division I athletics and tracking their academic outcomes.

Federal Graduation Rate (FGR)
Federal Graduation Rate assesses only first-time full-time freshmen in a given cohort and only counts them as academic successes if they graduate from their institution of initial enrollment within a six-year period. It makes no accommodation for transfers into or out of an institution. The rate is very limited because it ignores the large number of transfer students in higher education, but it is still the only rate that allows a direct comparison between student-athletes and the general student body.