[NU Sports] Minny's graduation rate compared with Northwestern

[Jeff Beamsley]

There is a lot of press today saying how bad Minny's athletic situation 
is because they are last in the BT in athletic graduation rate (58%), 
but that is six points BETTER than the graduation rate for the whole 
institution (52%).  Now this isn't something to brag about, but in 
general the athletic department is doing a better job than the 
institution in graduating people.

In comparison, Northwestern graduated 87% of it's athletes (on average), 
but the institution graduated 92%.  So the athletic department did five 
points WORSE than the whole institution.  When you dig into the numbers, 
it was the basketball team that appeared to have some problems (did our 
euro imports graduate?). 

Seems to me that you shouldn't hold an any athletic department to a 
higher standard than the whole institution and you should celebrate 
those athletic departments that do a better job than the institution 
itself.   Those athletic departments with positive numbers are 
demonstrating their commitment to education. 

If you reorg the list based on difference between the athletic 
department and the institutional graduation rates it looks a little 
different.

Minny +6
Purdue +6
OSU +5
Iowa +5
PSU -1
MSU -2
NU - 5
Indiana -5
Wisky -5
Illinois -9
UoM -10

Jeff