Why Are Female Athletes the Best College Students?

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
Even with the added responsibility of athletics, female student athletes throughout the country are having more success than male student athletes and non-student athletes when it comes to graduating.

Since the 1980s, women have graduated college at a higher rate than men. But since the NCAA started tracking the rates of its athletes in the mid-1990s, data shows that as an overall group, Division I female athletes far exceed male athletes academically, and even exceed the female student body as a whole.

NCAA data from the most recent group studied – students who started in 2010 and are tracked over a six-year period – shows female student athletes had a reported graduation rate of 75 percent, 14 percentage points greater than the male student athlete rate. 

The graduation rate of the entire female student body for that same cohort was 68 percent.

Since 1995, the gap between male and female athlete graduation rates has remained largely unchanged when using federal statistics. In that time, the NCAA created its own metric – called the Graduation Success Rate – to do their own measurement of academics in college sports. 

Under that measure, the gap is still wide – women in college sports graduated at a rate 11 percentage points higher than men – but that gap is narrowing. 

There are a number of theories for why the female student athletes outpace their counterparts. They include women being better prepared for college than men, or that men have far more opportunities to play professional sports, and therefore have less incentive to complete college. The proof, experts say, is that many of the nation’s largest institutions – those in the so named Power 5 conferences – have trends that differ from other schools in college athletics’ top division.
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Hail Varsity

 
I’m assuming the title is supppsed to start with “Why”?

To me, it’s simple. 

Example....how many male athletes go to college thinking they don’t need to study because they are going to the NFL or NBA? 

Female student athletes are there to get an education. 

 
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It's a pretty simple formula of the best academic resources possible to any students (no non-student athletes get the level of tutoring and aid and support that athletes get), and you combine it with a lack of incentive to make a high-paying career in athletics, along with the lack of incentive of others to help fake/cheat/skirt through it all.

 
Male athletes tend to get a pass in middle and high school because they are athletes.  They feel entitled.  They see college as an unwanted barrier to a pro career. 

 
As the OP points out, I think part of the gap can be explained by male athletes turning pro in football, basketball, and baseball.  I also am in concurrence with the idea that since women really don't have any options to play a sport professionally after college, they are there more to study and get an education.

 
What all of the above said. Athletes have a huge advantage with the academic centers and tutoring, but if your goal is to be a professional athlete you may already be really far behind in school when you get to college. If your goal is to get an education while your school is conveniently paid for, and you never dreamed of playing professional sports, you should definitely do better than the average student.

 
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Or maybe since men's sports tend to draw bigger crowds and make more revenue (sorry, it's true) the AD gives certain men's coaches more of a free rein to recruit marginal students who are better athletes than the women's coaches are allowed to recruit.  

I wonder of you could take gender out of the equation to test this?  Do NU's men's cross country and golf teams have higher grades than their football and men's basketball teams?  

 
NUance said:
Or maybe since men's sports tend to draw bigger crowds and make more revenue (sorry, it's true) the AD gives certain men's coaches more of a free rein to recruit marginal students who are better athletes than the women's coaches are allowed to recruit.  

I wonder of you could take gender out of the equation to test this?  Do NU's men's cross country and golf teams have higher grades than their football and men's basketball teams?  
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Here you go:

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/division-i-graduation-rates-database

 
Moiraine said:
Here you go:

http://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/research/division-i-graduation-rates-database
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Thanks for the link!  It sure looks like that is the case: the more profitable sports tend to have the lowest grades (men's football and basketball).  I'd bet if you took away men's football and basketball the difference in grades by gender would be insignificant. 

It's surprising that the author of the Hail Varsity article didn't arrive at that conclusion and write about that instead--that is, write about grade disparity by profitability of sport instead of by gender.  Oh well.     

 
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