Western Kentucky athletics continues to earn strong marks in the classroom in the latest Academic Progress Rate (APR) Annual Progress Report released by the NCAA on Tuesday.

The APR provides a real-time look at a program’s academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete on scholarship. The APR accounts for eligibility, retention and graduation and provides a measure of each team’s academic performance. This year, the APR score was a multi-year average of the 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years.

Every Hilltopper and Lady Topper program exceeded the NCAA’s mandated 930 minimum, and eight programs surpassed that threshold by 40 points or more. Seven topped the 930 threshold by at least 50 points.

Last week, WKU women’s soccer and women’s golf received NCAA APR Public Recognition Awards for having multi-year APR scores in the top 10 percent nationally through the 2018-19 academic year. WKU has had multiple programs honored for five consecutive seasons for the first time since the APR recognition program began.

Over the course of this spring and summer, 54 WKU student-athletes are set to graduate with a cumulative grade-point average of 3.31, which is the highest for a WKU graduating class since at least 2013.

Ten of the 54 student-athletes will be receiving their graduate degrees or a graduate certificate, while the others will be earning their bachelor’s degrees or receiving a certificate of completion in a new area.

Among the 10 receiving graduate degrees, six will graduate with a GPA of 3.96 or better, including five perfect 4.0s. Eighteen of WKU’s total graduates boast a GPA of 3.70 or higher.

During the 2019-20 school year, 79 student-athletes will have earned their degrees from WKU – including 25 who graduated in December – with a combined grade-point average of 3.24.

WKU athletics has also maintained the highest Graduation Success Rate (GSR) in program history at 85. Its 64 percent Federal Graduation Rate is the second-highest in program history, and 12 percent higher than the university’s general student body (52 percent).