UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State student-athletes earned a record 93% NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and 13 programs earned perfect 100% ratings. This is the seventh consecutive year the Nittany Lions have posted a record or record-tying performance in the classroom.
Both the GSR and Federal Graduation Rates are based on student-athlete cohorts from 2013-16 and reflect the percentage of student-athletes earning a degree within six years. The NCAA developed the GSR to account for transfer student-athletes, mid-year enrollees and others not tracked by the Federal Graduation Rates.
The NCAA's annual graduation rates report of Division I institutions across the nation revealed Penn State student-athletes at the University Park campus earned a GSR of 93% to break the school’s all-time record of 92, which was set in the 2020, 2021 and 2022 NCAA reports. Nittany Lion students posted a 93% graduation rate compared to the 90% average for all Division I institutions for students entering from 2013-14 academic year through the 2016-17 academic year.
Penn State student-athletes have logged a GSR in the 88-93% range during each of the past 17 NCAA reports, improving from 88% in the 2015 report to the record-breaking 2023 report at 93%.
“Our student-athletes continue to raise the bar in the classroom and their commitment to graduating from Penn State,” said Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Patrick Kraft. “We have a tradition of academic excellence that is second to none, and our student-athletes prove year after year that they can produce championship-level performances in the classroom and in competition. Our Morgan Academic Center staff continues to provide our student-athletes with all the resources they need to be successful in the classroom, and we are grateful for their service to our students.”
Twenty of the Nittany Lions’ 27 teams (the NCAA combines track and field/cross country teams into one team per gender for this reporting metric) earned a GSR at or above the Division I national average of 90%.
The 13 Nittany Lion squads posting 100% GSR scores were: women’s basketball, women’s fencing, field hockey, men’s golf, women’s golf, women’s hockey, women’s lacrosse, softball, women’s swimming & diving, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, men’s volleyball and wrestling.
The field hockey and women’s tennis teams earned a 100% GSR for the 19th consecutive year - every year since the NCAA implemented the release of Graduation Success Rate data in 2005. The women’s golf squad posted a 100% GSR for the eighth year in a row and the women’s hockey team had a perfect GSR score for the seventh consecutive year in which they’ve been eligible.
This is the 33rd annual release of institutional graduation rates since national "right-to-know" legislation was passed in 1990. In 2005, the NCAA Division I Committee on Academic Performance implemented the initial release of the team GSR data.
The GSR is the NCAA's more inclusive calculation of academic success among scholarship student-athletes. The NCAA rate is more accurate than the federally mandated methodology because it includes incoming transfers and students enrolling in the spring semester who receive athletic aid and graduate, and removes from the calculation student-athletes who leave an institution and were academically eligible to compete. The federal rate does neither.