Cal football graduation rates jump, Cal Athletics posts highest GSR ever

Graduation rates are out for the California Golden Bears for 2018-19, and they again trend upward. Cal athletes graduated at an 85% rate from the cohort years 2009-12, the highest in program history (the previous was 82% in 1998-99).

• Cal football posted a 75% graduation rate from the years 2009-2012, up 11% from last year.
• Cal basketball posted a 64% grad rate from the years 2009-2012, up 8% from last year.
• Seven Cal Athletics teams achieved 100% perfect graduation rate: Women’s golf, women’s gymnastics (three years running), women’s swimming and diving (four years in a row), men’s (four in a row) and women’s tennis (seven in a row), volleyball (eight in a row!!!), men’s water polo.
• Four teams went above 90%—men’s swimming & diving (92%), women’s rowing (94%), field hockey (91%) and women’s water polo (90%). Another four programs went above 85% in baseball, men’s gymnastics, lacrosse, and softball.

As you can see, these cohorts remain primarily from the Jeff Tedford and Mike Montgomery eras. Sonny Dykes recruits should be part of all future cohorts in Cal football. A note on cohorts:

The GSR is based on a six-year cohort, meaning that the latest report includes only those student-athletes who received athletic scholarships, enrolled at Cal as freshmen or incoming transfers from 2009-12, and completed their degree within six years.

Graduation rates for Cal football and basketball hit their nadir six years ago at 44% and 36% respectively, but have been swinging back in a positive direction ever since. Expect the graduation rates to continue to improve in coming cycles as we move past the final Tedford years/early Dykes years, and the program begins to stabilize from an academic perspective.