NU Posts Highest-Ever Graduation Success Rate

University of Nebraska student-athletes continue to excel at an elite level in the classroom. The latest evidence of that is the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) released by the NCAA on Wednesday, with Nebraska posting its highest overall GSR in the 11-year history of the rate.

Nebraska posted an all student-athlete GSR of 86 percent, an improvement of 3 percent from a year ago.

In addition to the highest all student-athlete GSR in Nebraska history, seven Husker teams achieved a perfect 100 percent GSR. Those teams included women’s basketball, women’s golf, women’s gymnastics, softball, women’s tennis, volleyball and men’s tennis. The women’s golf, women’s basketball, women’s tennis and volleyball programs have achieved a perfect GSR each of the 11 years the rate has been computed by the NCAA.

Six other Husker programs achieved a GSR of 85 percent or higher, including football, men’s gymnastics, rifle, women’s track/cross country, women’s swimming and soccer.

The football program saw a 4 percent improvement in its GSR, checking in at 85 percent. The 85 percent GSR for the football program ranked second among the 14 Big Ten Conference schools, trailing only Northwestern.

Nebraska tied for ninth among the 65 schools in the Power Five Conferences (plus Notre Dame). Nebraska joined Stanford, Northwestern, Duke, Notre Dame, Wake Forest, UCLA, Boston College, Alabama and Vanderbilt in the top 10.  Among public schools, Nebraska’s football program had the third-best GSR among Power Five Schools.

The 2015 football team has seven seniors playing this fall as graduate students. Another 10 members of the senior class are on track to earn their degrees at the completion of UNL’s fall semester.

The GSR is an NCAA measurement that, unlike the federally mandated graduation rates, includes transfer data in the calculation. The GSR data released on Wednesday is based on four classes of scholarship student-athletes who entered college in the fall of 2005 to the fall of 2008.

The GSR allows for a six-year window in which the student-athlete can earn their degree. Although the GSR includes student-athletes who transferred to Nebraska, it does not count student-athletes who transferred to another school and were academically eligible at the time of their transfer.