Rockhurst receives NCAA Presidents’ Award for Academic Excellence

For the ninth consecutive year, Rockhurst University has received the NCAA Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence for achieving four-year Academic Success Rates of 90 percent or higher.

Rockhurst finished with a 94 percent ASR in 2018-19, which ranks first among all schools in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. Rockhurst also led all Division II schools in Missouri and Kansas, while ranking 19 percent higher than the average for all NCAA Division II student-athletes.

"We are honored to receive the Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence for the ninth year in a row. We are very proud of our student-athletes and the strong commitment they make in the classroom," said Rockhurst Director of Athletics Gary Burns.

The national four-year ASR average remained steady at 73 percent, and the entering class of 2012 increased one point to 75 percent.

This is the 14th year the NCAA has released the ASR. 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 students who left the institution 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 approximately 34,000 non-scholarship student-athletes who enrolled from 2009 through 2012, the four years covered in the most recent data.

Even when utilizing the less-inclusive federal rate, Division II student-athletes perform significantly better than the general student body. The federal rate for Division II student-athletes in the 2012 entering class increased four points to an all-time high of 61 percent, while the general student body increased two points to 52 percent, a difference of nine points.

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