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 2024-25 report provided by the national office Wednesday (Nov. 19), the GLVC ranked tied for fourth in the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) at 64 percent and ninth in Academic Success Rate (ASR) at 81 percent for all student-athletes. The FGR and ASR rate dropped by one percent upon last year's marks.
The Northeast-10 Conference, Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference, and Sunshine State Conference all had the highest FGR percentage at 68, while the Sunshine State Conference 89 ASR percentage led the 23 D-II conference contingents. Tied for fourth in FGR was the East Coast Conference, GLVC, and the Great Midwest Athletic Conference at 64. For ASR, the NE-10 was second with 87 percent.
The report, which focuses on the academic success of freshman cohorts who enrolled in school between 2015-18 and were then given a six-year window to graduate, indicates that 5,329 of the GLVC's 6,540 student-athletes earned their degrees, which established the Conference's ASR. The FGR was calculated by 2,949 graduates among 4,631 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 30,000 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 5 percentage points. The federal rate for Division II student-athletes dropped by one percent to 58%, while the federal rate for the general student body stayed the same at 53%.
Notable single-class student-athlete increases in ASR over the 19 years of calculating this rate in Division II include overall (from 69% to 76%), Black men (from 42% to 51%), Black women (from 61% to 74%), Hispanic/Latinx men (48% to 67%) and Hispanic/Latinx women (63% to 80%).
In addition, there have been notable increases in ASR for two-year transfer student-athletes (from 60% to 73%) and four-year transfer student-athletes (from 70% 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.