While the on-field performance of the Oklahoma Sooners and Florida Gators has led the two squads to college football's championship game, both schools are well behind other elite teams when it comes to graduating and retaining their student-athletes, according to rankings released yesterday by the New America Foundation's Higher Ed Watch blog.

The Academic Bowl Championship Series (Academic BCS) rankings take the top 25 teams in the NCAA's college football Division I-A and sort them using academic indicators such as federal graduation rates and Academic Progress Rates -- a NCAA statistic that measures players' progression toward a degree. The rankings also take into account any disparities in graduation rates between the team and the college overall and between the team's black and white players.

For the second consecutive year the Eagles of Boston College take the top spot in the Academic BCS rankings, followed by Northwestern and Pennsylvania State Universities. Actual title game competitors Oklahoma and Florida, meanwhile, come in an unimpressive 20th and 21st. Both are hurt by having a team graduation rate of just 36 percent, while Florida has a difference of 25 percentage points between the graduation rate of its white and black players.

Higher Ed Watch is a policy blog produced by the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation. It features op-ed length posts every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday on issues concerning college access, quality, and affordability, and a roundup of news stories on Friday. This is the second consecutive year Higher Ed Watch has produced the Academic BCS rankings, which was compiled by Lindsey Luebchow with assistance from Ben Miller. Last year's rankings were prominently featured on ESPN.com's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, among other media outlets.

To see the whole Academic BCS rankings, please click here.
To visit Higher Ed Watch, please click here.
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The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States.  Headquartered in Washington D.C., New America also has offices in California.