By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

March 18, 2009 – The recent news that African-American NCAA college athletes continue to fall behind their White counterparts is troubling.  And if the Obama administration is going to reach its lofty goal of leading the world in college graduates by 2020, these students will need to be counted. 

On Monday, studies conducted by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, were released that looked at men’s and women’s college teams and analyzed NCAA data on graduation rates and how well college athletes were doing academically. 

I know President Barack Obama is a huge basketball fan – but he might not be a fan of these findings. 

The study took an even closer look at teams competing in the NCAA men’s and women’s tournaments.

The top seeds in the men’s NCAA; North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Louisville and Connecticut are winning on the hardwood, but struggling to cross the stage on graduation day. 

North Carolina tops the positive list with a graduation rate of 86 percent compared to UConn’s poor showing of 33 percent. Louisville faired a tad better at 42 percent, with Pitt in the below-average range with 69 percent.

But the most alarming news was the study discovered the ongoing gaps between the graduation rates of White and African-American players. Of the collegiate teams they surveyed for the report, 25 tournament teams had a gap of 20 percentage points or more between Black and White players.

NCAA President Myles Brand’s academic reform package is working. “This is far better than the 35 men’s teams (54 percent) below the 925 score in 2008. Nonetheless, the continuing significant disparity between the academic success between African-American and White men’s basketball student-athletes is deeply troubling,” Brand said.

Richard Lapchick, director of the institute responsible for the study, said in a written statement, “The good news is that the gaps are narrowing slightly.”

All of this is something Obama may want his administration to keep an eye on.  The president has an ambitious agenda and wants to improve public school education and accountability.  He’s also set a goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020.  I’m sure he’s also planning to count college athletes. 

Why do you think African-American college basketball players aren’t getting their degrees?