There has been no significant change in the University’s student-athlete graduation rates for most sports since last year, according to statistics released by the NCAA last week.
The numbers reflect the success of the class of athletes who entered universities between 1997 and 2000.
The Michigan men’s basketball’s graduation rate fell from 74 percent in last year’s statistics to 57 percent this year.
Michigan Athletic Director Bill Martin cautioned against reading too much into fluctuations. He said it’s tough to measure smaller sports that only have three to four student-athletes in a class.
“There’s a big difference between four seniors and fifteen you would have in football,” Martin said. “That has to be taken into consideration.”
The Wolverines showed improvement in football (up 2 percent to 73), women’s soccer (up 9 percent to 88) and women’s gymnastics (up 10 percent to 100).
Martin said he was pleased with the latest numbers.
He said that his goal has always been to have the graduation rate of Wolverine athletes mirror the University’s general undergraduate population.
The overall graduation rate for University athletes will be released later this month.
The graduation rate is the percentage of athletes who graduate within six years of entering a Division I university.
The overall Division I graduation rate remained at 77 percent, the same as last year.
NCAA President Myles Brand has targeted 80 percent as his eventual goal for the Division I graduation rate. But he said he was pleased with the efforts universities have made to raise expectations.
“NCAA student-athletes are students first, and by and large they are good students,” Brand said last week. “They have been afforded the privilege of competing in their chosen sport while pursuing their studies as full-time students, and most of them are handling those twin responsibilities quite well.”