Despite numbers that show Iowa State’s student-athlete graduation rate at 58 percent, ISU officials said those numbers might not paint a fair and exact picture.

Every year, the NCAA publishes data regarding student-athlete graduation rates among Division I schools.

This year’s statistics show national rates at a 10-year high, reaching 60 percent for the first time since the early 1990s.

The data was compiled using the freshman class of 1995-1996. The NCAA requires schools to graduate student athletes within six years of enrollment to meet rates.

Bill Smith, ISU associate athletic director for sports administration and compliance, said Iowa State isn’t necessarily concerned with the new rates, which show the school below the national average.

“It’s more important for us to concentrate on the four-year average when evaluating graduation rates for our athletes,” he said.

Tom Kroeschell, ISU associate athletic director for media relations, agreed.

“Certainly a four-year [graduation rate] average is a better indicator of success than just a one-year statistic,” Kroeschell said.

The four-year averages Smith and Kroeschell allude to refer to the graduation rates among student athletes who entered school in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. The NCAA’s rates were based on only the 1995-1996 freshman class.

During the four-year span, Iowa State ranks third overall at 60 percent in the Big 12 Conference, behind only Baylor at 68 percent and Missouri at 64 percent.

Donald Reed, ISU director of student-athlete services, said the NCAA’s rates don’t take certain extenuating circumstances into consideration, including student transfers. Factors such as these could ultimately go against the initial school.

“If a student athlete enrolls here at ISU, and then transfers to another college and graduates from that other college, he counts against our rates, because he didn’t graduate from ISU,” Reed said.

For example, former ISU basketball player Shane Power, who now attends Mississippi State, was included in the 2000-2001 freshman class at Iowa State. Power could graduate from Mississippi State and still count as a negative statistic towards the 2007 NCAA student-graduation rates for Iowa State.

“Our mission and our goal is to graduate every athlete that comes to our program,” Reed said. “When we recruit an individual, we put our best resources towards that student graduating.”