Coincident with the NCAA Tournament, we have the obligatory look at participant graduation rates. Number one seed University of Louisville comes in, among the top four, at number three; 42% of Louisville's basketball players graduate within six years. I'd have bet lower than that, since only 40% of Louisville's students overall graduate in six years. (Louisville is primarily a commuter school with a large population of part-time students with no family history of higher education.) Also, my opinion is skewed by the academic enthusiasm of my son, a student at UL majoring in ultimate Frisbee. His outstanding academic achievement to date: the Wendy's Dollar Menu Challenge, in which he ate all 10 items on Wendy's dollar menu within 15 minutes.
The statistic that impresses, though, is the overall student-athlete graduation rate, which at almost all schools is substantially higher than the rate of graduation at the school as a whole. (The exceptions tend to be schools with student-athlete graduation rates over 90%.) At Louisville, 75% of the student athletes graduate in six years, almost double the rate of the student population as a whole.
Also a shoutout to Western Kentucky University, which graduates 100% of it's basketball players. Western Kentucky's men's basketball team plays in Diddle Arena, named for the most popular student activity during the basketball off season. Go 'Toppers!
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