Only 100 points lower than an academically achieved high school student. .
The admission of an athlete to a big college is a mystery so I went to see maybe the GPA of an athlete would reflect why they are there. In the 1950's Athletes were at the top part of their colleges in GPA percentile. Each decade it decreased to now high profile athletes are at the bottom 25% of their class in GPA's. 72% of the students that have a poor GPA are athletes. Students at large dominate academics percentage wise across America, so it is a hard assumption to make against athletes when these at large students aren't bouncing around extra curricular activities.
There are a lot of ethical problems going on in college athletics as well. Since 1979 there have been over 14,000 investigations concerning student-athletes and coaches. There have been accusations of coaches doing players homework, paying off teachers, and buying their players expensive merchandise. NCAA sports are starting to become a professional business. Coach's salaries are higher than the president and any other faculty member of the university. .
The public looks at college athletes and says that they"ll end up leaving college for professional sports anyway. But a statistic that a college student-athlete has going for them is their graduation rate. The past decade has produced more graduating athletes than any other decade. 86% of high profile athletes graduates college. An athlete's potential to graduate is better than a student who doesn't participate in any other extra-curricular activity.
A lot of grief given to colleges is the money they spend on scholarships for athletes. An example of the amount of money college's hand to their athletes is football players. NCAA allows 86 players to be on scholarship on a football team. Each year a coach is allowed to give out 25 new football scholarships. If a coach uses all 86 scholarships the University will hand out over two and half million dollars.