National reports show while the overall student athlete graduation rate at the University of Wisconsin has gone up over the past decade, the rate for female athletes has dropped.

According to reports compiled by the NCAA, in 2009, 59 percent of student athletes at UW graduated within six years. This is a 4 percent increase from 2000, when only 55 percent of student athletes graduated.

While the report shows a rise in overall graduation rates for student athletes, the rate for women dropped from 83 percent in 2000 to 75 percent in 2009. The rate for white women dropped even more compared to other groups, from 89 percent to 76 percent.

The rate of the drop was not steady. In 2008, the graduation rate for women was even higher than the rate in 2000 at 89 percent, and the rate for white women was 90 percent.

In 2009, men’s basketball was the sport with the lowest overall graduation rate, with only 50 percent of its athletes graduating in six years or less.

“Historically, students in the sports of [football] and [basketball] leave school to pursue professional opportunities, and this negatively impacts the graduation rate,” Assistant Athletic Director for Academic Staff Doug Tiedt said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.

He added this number was based on only handful of students, so the graduation rate may not be the best indicator of how well these athletes are graduating.

Tiedt said maintaining academic success for student athletes is a priority, adding the athletic department implements many programs to aid athletes. These include access to advising and tutorial and learning specialist support, as well as life skills training to help the athletes along the way.

“We are continuously looking to improve the academic success of our student athletes,” Tiedt said. “We will continue to monitor and assess the programming we have in place and make any necessary changes.”

Tiedt said in the e-mail while the graduation rates are one way to judge a student athlete’s academic success, they should not be the only way a university judges it. He said a possibly more accurate way is the Graduation Success Rate.

GSR is part of the NCAA’s Academic Reform Initiative, which does not penalize a university for outgoing transfer students who graduate in good academic standing as the graduation rate does. Instead, it simply transfers the student’s data to his or her new university.

UW female athletes in 2009 graduated with a GSR of 91 percent, and white women had a GSR of 93 percent. Because GSR was only first implemented in 2005, there can be no comparison with the 2000 data.

Tiedt added another potential problem with the graduation rate is the size of the sample. He said in any given year only around 95 student athletes are counted. In 2009, only 44 female athletes were counted, 38 of whom were white.

“This low [sample size] also leads us to be cautious in drawing conclusions — both positive and negative,” Tiedt said.