Since the NCAA Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence was inaugurated in 2011, just ten Division II schools have received the honor all ten times it's been awarded.
Hillsdale College is one of those ten – and among the top of that small group of consistent achievers.
The Chargers are once again near the top of the list among NCAA Division II programs in 2021, receiving the NCAA Presidents' Award for Academic Excellence handed out annually to athletic departments with an Academic Success Rate of 90% or higher.
For the fourth straight year, Hillsdale finished in the top five among the 309 Division II school across the country in ASR, which measures the percentage of student-athletes from an institution who graduate within six years of initial college enrollment or who leave the athletic department on track to graduate and in good academic standing.
The Chargers posted an ASR of 98%, one percentage point higher than its 2020-21 school year mark and tied for the third best in the nation, along with Biola University and Thomas Jefferson University, and just one percentage point behind the top two schools, Bentley University and Saint Michael's College.
"It is an honor recognizing 43 schools for this prestigious award," said Steven Shirley, president of Minot State and chair of the Division II Presidents Council. "I applaud these schools and student-athletes for their hard work, commitment and dedication to achieving academic excellence."
Hillsdale was one of three Great Midwest Athletic Conference schools to receive the honor in 2021, and the highest-achieving institution of 10 from the Midwest Region who were recognized. Cedarville (93%) and Trevecca Nazarene (93%) each also made the list from the G-MAC.
In total, 43 Division II member schools earned the Presidents' Award this year, an all-time record for the 10-year program surpassing last year's high-water mark of 42. The Division II ASR includes transfers into a school in the calculation and removes transfers out who left school while academically eligible. The ASR also includes the more than 31,000 nonscholarship student-athletes who were enrolled in the four years covered in the most recent data.
Even when using the less-inclusive federal graduation rates, student-athletes are outperforming their peers in the general student population by 8%. For Division II athletes, the federal rate increased 1 percentage point to 60%, and the general student body increased 1 point to 52%.