Academic Progress Rate
The Academic Progress Rate is a measure introduced by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the nonprofit association that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, to track student-athletes' chances of graduation. The Academic Progress Rate is a term-by-term measure of eligibility and retention for Division I student-athletes that was developed as an early indicator of eventual graduation rates.
It was introduced in the wake of concerns that the majority of athletes were not graduating with qualifications to prepare them for life.
Background
The mandatory publication of graduation rates came into effect in 1990 as a consequence of the "Student Right-to-Know Act," which attempted to create an environment in which universities would become more devoted to academics and hold athletes more accountable for academic success. However, the graduation rates established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association showed poor results, for example they reported that among students who entered college between 1993 and 1996 only 51 percent of football players graduated within 6 years and 41 percent of basketball players.Feeling pressure to improve these poor rates, the NCAA instituted reforms in 2004, including the Academic Progress Rate, a new method for gauging the academic progress of student athletes. It was put into place in order to aid in the NCAA's goal for student-athletes to graduate with meaningful degrees preparing them for life. The principal data collector was Thomas Paskus, the principal research scientist for the NCAA. Originally, if a program's four-year average APR fell below 925, that would trigger sanctions like scholarship losses, and a four-year APR of 900 or lower triggered "historical penalties" like postseason bans. In 2011, the NCAA voted to raise the minimum APR that triggers penalties to 930.
Functions
The APR measures how scholarship student-athletes are performing term by term throughout the school year. It is a composite team measurement based upon how individual team members do academically. Teams that don't make the 930 APR threshold are subject to sanctions. The NCAA works closely with the schools that do not meet the threshold in order to improve them. When a school has APR challenges, it may be encouraged or even required to present an academic improvement plan to the NCAA. In reviewing these plans, the national office staff encourages schools to work with other campus units to achieve a positive outcome. The staff also works with APR-challenged schools to create reasonable timelines for improvement. While eligibility requirements make the individual student-athlete accountable, the APR creates a level of responsibility for the university.Measurement
Teams that fail to achieve an APR score of 930—equivalent to a 50% graduation rate—may be penalized. A perfect score is 1000. The scores are calculated as follows:Each student-athlete receiving athletically related financial aid earns one retention point for staying in school and one eligibility point for being academically eligible. A team's total points are divided by the points possible and then multiplied by 1000 to yield the team's APR score.
Example: An NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision team awards the full complement of 85 grants-in-aid. If 80 student-athletes remain in school and academically eligible, three remain in school but are academically ineligible and two drop out academically ineligible, the team earns 163 of 170 possible points for that term. Divide 163 by 170 and multiply by 1000, yielding the team's APR for that term: 959.
The NCAA calculates the rate as a rolling, four-year figure that takes into account all the points student-athletes could earn for remaining in school and academically eligible during that period. Teams that do not earn an APR above specific benchmarks face penalties ranging from scholarship reductions to more severe sanctions like restrictions on scholarships and practice time.
Sanctions
Teams that score below 930 and have a student-athlete who both failed academically and left school can lose scholarships under the immediate penalty structure.Teams with Academic Progress Rates below 900 face additional sanctions, increasing in severity for each consecutive year the team fails to meet the standard.
Year 1: a public warning letter for poor performance
Year 2: restrictions on scholarships and practice time
Year 3: loss of postseason competition for the team
Year 4: restricted membership status for an institution. The school's entire athletics program is penalized and will not be considered a part of Division I.
The first penalties under the APR system were scheduled to be announced in December 2005. Starting with the 2008–09 academic year, bans from postseason competition were added to the penalty structure. The most severe penalty available is a one-year suspension of NCAA membership, which has not yet been assessed as of 2010–11.
Prior to 2010–11, only four teams had received postseason bans. The results of the NCAA's APR report for that year, which covered 2006–07 through 2009–10, saw eight teams receive that penalty—five in men's basketball and three in football. Most notably, Southern University became the first school ever to receive APR-related postseason bans in two sports. The highest-profile penalty in that year's cycle was handed down to defending NCAA men's basketball champion Connecticut. The Huskies lost two scholarships for the 2011–12 season due to APR violations. UConn was barred from postseason play in 2012–13 due to APR penalties.
For the 2014 football season, Idaho and UNLV received postseason bans due to low four-year APR averages. However, UNLV submitted "updated" APR score to the NCAA raising the score needed for postseason eligibility. On May 6, 2025, it was announced that the Akron Zips are ineligible for postseason play, due to their 4th straight season of low APR of 914. The Zips have been getting worse every year for the past 5 seasons. One more season like this, and they will be the first team to receive the strictest punishment.
Reform
NCAA college presidents met in Indianapolis in August 2011 to discuss a reform on the APR because of the poor academic performance by student athletes. The NCAA Board of Directors, on Thursday August 11, voted to ban Division I athletic teams from postseason play if their four-year academic progress rate failed to meet 930.The new policy took effect in the 2012–13 academic year; however, institutions were given a period of three years to align their APR with the new standard. The postseason restrictions were as follows:
2012–13 postseason: 900 four-year average or 930 average over most recent two years
2013–14 postseason: 930 four-year average or 940 average over most recent two years
2015–16 postseason and beyond: 930 four-year average
At the time, the APR benchmark for postseason play was 900, so this was a significant increase, which could have resulted in serious consequences for some institutions if they failed to improve their APR.
Reform effects
On football
There are many questions regarding how the NCAA will enforce the new policy for football. The College Football Playoff, and formerly the Bowl Championship Series, is its own entity and decides the college football postseason, thus making them the governing body for college football. President Gary Ransdell said there is uncertainty on how the new standard relates to the BCS. "The BCS is an independently run enterprise, yet it involves NCAA member institutions," he said. "So does this 930 rule also determine eligibility for BCS games? I think that's yet to be ironed out."Some NCAA institutions participate in football leagues, other than the BCS, which are organized by the NCAA and these reforms would apply to. In the 2011–12 academic year there were 17 teams in the FBS league with APRs below 930 and 37 teams in the FCS league. If these programs do not find a way to improve their APR then they will suffer postseason bans.
Under NCAA postseason rules, tiebreaker procedures based on a school's Academic Progress Rate are used in emergency situations if there are not enough teams with six wins and at least.500 or better to qualify for postseason games. There were 41 games in the 2021–22 NCAA football bowl games, and 80 eligible teams. One slot was used under the 13-game rule, and a second slot was given to Rutgers based on APR.
On men's basketball
The APR's flaws are highlighted in men's basketball. "Syracuse's Jim Boeheim suffered the two-scholarship hit last summer, and in doing so publicly upbraided the APR for taking into account the departures of Eric Devendorf, Jonny Flynn and Paul Harris for the NBA draft, all three of whom left campus to prepare for the NBA event without fulfilling their spring semester requirements." Many college basketball players leave before they graduate, and the ones that leave in bad academic standing cause the APR to go down. This issue is seen throughout college basketball.To exemplify this phenomenon for collegiate basketball: if the 930 postseason ban had been in effect for the 2011–12 season, then 99 teams would have received postseason bans.