INDIANAPOLIS – The GLVC continues to rank as one of the nation's premier NCAA Division II conferences for academic success, with UIndy leading the way in academic success rate (ASR). Among the 23 DII conferences analyzed in the 2023-24 report provided by the national office on Nov. 20, the GLVC ranked fifth in the Federal Graduation Rate (FGR) at 65 percent and tied for sixth in ASR at 82 percent for all student-athletes. The FGR rate dropped by three percent and the ASR rate dropped by two percent upon last year's marks.

Additionally, the GLVC saw 11 of its then-14 member institutions last year exceed the national four-year ASR of 80 percent and 12 of 14 meet or exceed the FGR average of 60 percent. As compared to last year the GLVC dropped one in ASR and gained one in FGR. The complete list of GLVC schools and their rates can be found in the table below.
 

SCHOOL	ASR	FGR
Drury	90	67
Illinois Springfield	95	72
UIndy	99	66
Lewis	82	62
Maryville	95	67
McKendree	76	61
Missouri S&T	78	73
Missouri-St. Louis	87	73
Quincy	71	50
Rockhurst	89	86
Southwest Baptist	84	60
Truman State	84	66
Upper Iowa	79	56
William Jewell	86	68

The report, which focuses on the academic success of freshman cohorts who enrolled in school between 2014-17 and were then given a six-year window to graduate, indicates that 5,220 of the GLVC's 6,339 student-athletes earned their degrees, which established the Conference's ASR. The FGR was calculated by 3,166 graduates among 4,841 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 6 percentage points. The federal rate for Division II student-athletes dropped by one percent to 59%, while the federal rate for the general student body stayed the same at 53%.

Notable single-class student-athlete increases in ASR over the 18 years of calculating this rate in Division II include overall (from 69% to 77%), Black men (from 42% to 52%), Black women (from 61% to 72%), Hispanic/Latinx men (48% to 67%) and Hispanic/Latinx women (63% to 81%).

In addition, there have been notable increases in ASR for two-year transfer student-athletes (from 61% to 74%) and four-year transfer student-athletes (from 68% to 78%) 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.