INDIANAPOLIS – The Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) continues to rank as one of the nation's premier NCAA Division II conferences for academic success. Among the 23 D-II conferences analyzed in the 2022-23 report provided by the national office Wednesday (Dec. 6), the GLVC ranked fourth in the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) at 68 percent and tied for fifth in Academic Success Rate (ASR) at 84 percent for all student-athletes. Both the FGR and ASR rates were a one-percent dip upon last year's marks.
Additionally, the GLVC saw 12 of its then-13 member institutions last year exceed the national four-year ASR of 76 percent and 11 of 13 meet or exceed the FGR average of 60 percent, both of which were the same as last year's rates. The complete list of GLVC schools and their rates can be found in the table below.
| SCHOOL |
ASR |
FGR |
| Drury |
85 |
59 |
| Illinois Springfield |
88 |
63 |
| Indianapolis |
81 |
69 |
| Lewis |
93 |
73 |
| Maryville |
90 |
71 |
| McKendree |
78 |
68 |
| Missouri S&T |
78 |
72 |
| Missouri-St. Louis |
82 |
64 |
| Quincy |
80 |
60 |
| Rockhurst |
94 |
82 |
| Southwest Baptist |
70 |
50 |
| Truman State |
91 |
81 |
| William Jewell |
88 |
65 |
The Northeast-10 Conference again had the highest FGR percentage at 72, while the Sunshine State Conference 89 ASR percentage led the 23 D-II conference contingent. Tied for second in FGR was the Sunshine State and Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference at 69. For ASR, the NE-10 was second with an 88 percent.
This is the first year since 2012 that the GLVC has not ranked among the nation's top three Division II conferences in both FGR and ASR.
The report, which focuses on the academic success of freshman cohorts who enrolled in school between 2013-16, and were then given a six-year window to graduate, indicates that 5,044 of the GLVC's 6,002 student-athletes earned their degrees, which established the Conference's ASR. The FGR was calculated by 3,134 graduates among 4,625 enrolled student-athletes.
The NCAA developed the Division II ASR at the request of college and university presidents who believed the federal graduation rate was flawed. Division II's ASR data takes transfer students into account and removes likely transfers-out who left the school in good academic standing. In addition, given the partial scholarship financial aid model of Division II, the ASR data includes student-athletes not on athletically related financial aid. The result is that ASR captures more than 31,000 non-scholarship student-athletes who were enrolled in the four years covered in the most recent data.
Even when using the less-inclusive federal rate, Division II student-athletes outperform the general student body by 7 percentage points. The federal rate for Division II student-athletes remained the same, with the student-athlete rate at 60%, while the federal rate for the general student body rose 1 percentage point to 53%.
Notable single-class student-athlete increases in ASR over the 17 years of calculating this rate in Division II include overall (from 69% to 77%), Black men (from 42% to 51%), Black women (from 61% to 76%), Hispanic/Latinx men (48% to 66%) and Hispanic/Latinx women (63% to 80%).
In addition, there have been notable increases in ASR for two-year transfer student-athletes (from 57% to 73%) and four-year transfer student-athletes (from 66% to 77%) over the past 10 years.
At the NCAA Convention in January 2014, the Division II membership approved a legislative package intended to increase student-athlete success and graduation rates. The package addresses a variety of academic standards, and includes adjustments to eligibility standards, progress-toward-degree requirements and standards for transfers from two-year colleges. This is the third academic year in which all of these requirements are in effect.