Last week, the NCAA released its latest annual report on student-athlete graduation rates. And the numbers appear to be holding steady: 63 percent of NCAA student-athletes who entered school in 2000-01 went on to graduate. That’s the same figure as last year, and up from 60 percent in the 2004 report.

Looking across the board at all collegiate athletic organizations (including the NAIA), graduation rates are up from 58 percent three years ago to 62 percent. Not bad, but athletes aren’t “improving” at the same rate as the general student body, which saw its rate climb from 54 to 61 percent.

We use the ironic quotation marks for “improving” because we know a few things about statistics and what they may or may not mean. It’s easy these days to be jaded and assume that colleges are lowering their academic standards to make their graduation rates look better. Let’s see some reports on that before we rejoice.