The Academic Progress Rate (APR) is a measure introduced by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the nonprofit association that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, to track student-athletes' chances of graduation.
[2] However, the graduation rates established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) showed poor results, for example they reported that among students who entered college between 1993 and 1996 only 51 percent of football players graduated within 6 years and 41 percent of basketball players.
[3] It was put into place in order to aid in the NCAA's goal for student-athletes to graduate with meaningful degrees preparing them for life.
When a school has APR challenges, it may be encouraged or even required to present an academic improvement plan to the NCAA.
In reviewing these plans, the national office staff encourages schools to work with other campus units to achieve a positive outcome.
[4] While eligibility requirements make the individual student-athlete accountable, the APR creates a level of responsibility for the university.
Example: An NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) team awards the full complement of 85 grants-in-aid.
[8] The NCAA calculates the rate as a rolling, four-year figure that takes into account all the points student-athletes could earn for remaining in school and academically eligible during that period.
The results of the NCAA's APR report for that year, which covered 2006–07 through 2009–10, saw eight teams receive that penalty—five in men's basketball and three in football.
The highest-profile penalty in that year's cycle was handed down to defending NCAA men's basketball champion Connecticut.
[11] For the 2014 football season, Idaho and UNLV received postseason bans due to low four-year APR averages.
[13] NCAA college presidents met in Indianapolis in August 2011 to discuss a reform on the APR because of the poor academic performance by student athletes.
The NCAA Board of Directors, on Thursday August 11, voted to ban Division I athletic teams from postseason play if their four-year academic progress rate failed to meet 930.
"Syracuse's Jim Boeheim suffered the two-scholarship hit last summer, and in doing so publicly upbraided the APR for taking into account the departures of Eric Devendorf, Jonny Flynn and Paul Harris for the NBA draft, all three of whom left campus to prepare for the NBA event without fulfilling their spring semester requirements.
One exception that can be made is for student-athletes who leave prior to graduation, while in good academic standing, to pursue a professional career.
GSR basically removes athletes who leave an institution in good academic standing from the denominator and adds those who transfer in and eventually graduate to the sample.
Thus, GSR recognizes that college athletes (based at least partly on their interests and abilities) may take a different path to graduation than other full-time students and in some aspects is an accurate yardstick.
[18] [19] Another indicator of the academic performance of student athletes is the Federal Graduation Rate, FGR, which is published by the university.
In computing the FGR the only data that is relevant is whether the student athlete graduates within six years of enrolling in the institution.