UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Penn State student-athletes earned a record 93% NCAA Graduation Success Rate (GSR) and 12 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 Graduation Success Rate and Federal Graduation Rates are based upon student-athlete cohorts from 2013-16 and reflect the percentage of student-athletes earning a degree within six years. The NCAA developed the Graduation Success Rate 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 Graduation Success Rate (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 Graduation Success Rate in the 88-93% range during each of the past 17 NCAA reports, improving from 88% in the 2015 report to a record-breaking 93% report in the 2023 report.
"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 Dr. 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 Graduation Success Rate at or above the Division I national GSR average of 90%.
The 13 Nittany Lion squads posting 100% Graduation Success Rate 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 football program posted a school-record 93% Graduation Success Rate. The 93% mark tops the previous high GSR of 91% set in 2012 and is just the second time in program history topping 90%. This is also the 14th consecutive year the football team has surpassed the national average GSR for football.
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-straight year 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.
