Big Graduation-Rate Gap Looms Between Football Players and Full-Time Male Students

A sizable and pervasive gap between the average graduation rates of NCAA Division I football players and full-time male students over all at several conferences persisted in the years from 2000 to 2003, according to the 2011 Adjusted Graduation Gap Report from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s College Sport Research Institute. In the Pacific-12 and Big Ten Conferences, regarded as among the most prestigious college-sports leagues, full-time male students graduated at a higher rate than football players by 26 and 21 percentage points, respectively. The numbers are not much changed from the period of 1999 to 2002.