INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The wealthiest schools in college sports are still cashing in with high academic performance.
Poorer schools, meanwhile, continue to pay a stiff price for sub-par scores.
The NCAA’s latest Academic Progress Rate numbers, released Wednesday, show that schools with less money continue to play catch-up even as athletes remain in school and work toward degrees at record rates.
Of the 68 Division I teams falling below the 930 cutline, 81 percent were described as “low-resource” institutions, 85 percent were historically black colleges and universities, and 22 of the 23 teams facing postseason bans also were HBCUs. Nine teams at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, received postseason bans, including baseball, football and women’s basketball.
Scores are based on a calculation that allows each athlete to earn one point per semester for being academically eligible and another point each semester for staying in school. A perfect score is 1,000 and the NCAA says a score of 930 correlates to a 50 percent graduation rate. The latest scores cover the years 2011-12 through 2014-15.