KU team’s graduation rate lags seeding

By Eric Weslander     Mar 13, 2007

Kansas University may be a No. 1 seed, but it’s in the middle of the pack among NCAA Tournament teams for players’ graduation rates.

Of the 65 teams in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, 43 teams have a higher graduation rate than the KU men’s team, according to a measure known as the “Graduation Success Rate.” The measure shows that of the freshmen basketball players who entered KU between 1996 and 1999, 45 percent graduated within six years.

By another measure, the federal graduation rate – which doesn’t count students who transfer into the program and penalizes schools for students who transfer away – KU has a 40 percent graduation rate. Thirty-two of the teams in the NCAA field scored higher than KU on that measure.

“These are reflections of the past, and for such a small program like basketball, these numbers change wildly from year to year,” said Paul Buskirk, KU associate athletics director.

For example, the numbers don’t include the 2001 freshman class of Michael Lee, Keith Langford, Wayne Simien and Aaron Miles, all of whom graduated.

“Our recent past is very favorable,” he said.

The figures come from the NCAA but are compiled every year at tournament time by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.

“I’m really leery of these kinds of comparisons because in many cases we may be comparing apples to oranges – comparing big schools to small schools, comparing big athletic programs to small athletic programs,” said Leonard Krishtalka, a KU professor of ecology and evolutionary biology who serves on the athletics advisory board. “There are so many variables here.”

Overall, KU’s graduation rate for student athletes is 70 percent, according to the Graduation Success Rate measure, and 64 percent using the federal graduation rate measure. That’s higher than the KU student body’s overall 58 percent graduation rate.

Graduation rates

Here’s how the KU men’s basketball program’s 45 percent graduation rate compares with other teams in the NCAA Tournament:Other Big 12 universities:¢ Texas: 44 percent¢ Texas A&M: 40 percent¢ Texas Tech: 55 percentOther No. 1 seeds: ¢ North Carolina: 70 percent¢ Ohio State: 38 percent¢ Florida: 100 percentOther teams in the West region:¢ Florida A&M: 9 percent¢ Kentucky: 33 percent¢ Illinois: 80 percent¢ Virginia Tech: 71 percent¢ Southern Illinois: 69 percent¢ Duke: 67 percent¢ Indiana: 82 percentSource: 2006 NCAA “Graduation Success Rate.”

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23963KU team’s graduation rate lags seeding