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Utah State's Graduation Success Rate (GSR), an 11-year old metric to identify how many college athletes graduate, stands at 87 percent, it was announced by the NCAA.

The GSR is a four-year average encompassing the 2005-2008 classes. The national average is 86 percent.

Among Utah State's 16 NCAA-sponsored sports, two have a 100 percent GSR — men's tennis and men's basketball, which has achieved that metric for eight straight years. The Utah State women's cross country and track programs (94 percent) and women's basketball team (89) percent have also excelled.

Utah State's football program has a GSR of 86 percent, which ranks second in the Mountain West behind Air Force (88).

"We're very proud of our student-athletes in persisting to graduation," said Dr. Brian Evans, USU's senior associate athletics director for student services. "Earning their degree is the ultimate goal and doing so at a rate of 87 percent is something we can all be proud of."

Among the six Division I schools in the state of Utah, Utah State ranked first ahead of Utah (83 percent), BYU (75 percent), Utah Valley (71 percent), Weber State (69 percent) and Southern Utah (69 percent).

The graduation success rate is based on a comparison of the number of student-athletes who entered college and the number of those who graduated within six years of initial enrollment. The GSR subtracts student-athletes who depart for allowable exclusions such as church missions. It also subtracts students who transfer but would have been academically eligible to compete had they returned to the institution.

— Steve Luhm