"Successful college student retention strategies need to address this complex mix of procedures and regulations and look to minimize the burden on the customer, the individual student."

Mark Shay
Chief Academic Liasion
EducationDynamics

National ACademic ADvising Association is a great resource for more information about how advising can improve student retention.

The National Survey of Student Engagement is an annual survey whose results will provide an estimate of how undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending college. Survey items on NSSE represent empirically confirmed good practices in undergraduate education.

Student Retention . org is a non-profit center for the study of student persistence in postsecondary education and offers an effective practice database along with workshops

The Policy Center on the First Year of College invites postsecondary institutions in a model for voluntary, comprehensive self-study and development and implementation of an intentional action plan designed to enhance the effectiveness of the first year.

What is Student Retention?

College Student Retention Articles Archive

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• Successful College Student Retention
• Improving Undergraduate Retention
• It's The Faculty
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Retaining Students

College Student Retention

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Universities are most often run as silos, different entities (colleges, professional schools) operating independently under one loosely managed brand. At the nearby University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton Business School, the School of Social Policy and Practice, the School of Design, the School for Engineering and Applied Sciences and the College of General Studies are examples of unique entities that operate under the Penn umbrella. In the business world we would refer to this as a portfolio company where multiple divisions operate under one holding company. In either scenario, the silo's or divisions have a great deal of autonomy and tend not to collaborate with each other.

To a student, and those that help fund the student's education, these silo's are misunderstood and present real barriers to the student's success. Each school has different admissions requirements and different graduate requirements. Movement (matriculation) from one school to the other is often harder than transferring to another university, which is a real contributing factor to, as you might have guessed, retention. What is even more difficult is the transfer between full-time and part-time status.

Successful retention strategies need to address this complex mix of procedures and regulations and look to minimize the burden on the customer, the individual student. Finding the right place for a student so they can eventually get a degree should be the business of all university administrators, but too often policies and procedures make this hard.

In addition to the right academic major, a student's graduation may be impacted by courseload. A number of students attempt to pursue a full-time college education while maintaining a full-time job. In 2000, 828,000 full-time students worked full-time. This occurs most often at so-called commuter schools such as San Francisco State, City University of New York, University of the District of Columbia. Financial necessity is one driver; other reasons include family responsibilities and tenure-related issues at labor unions. Students who can do both are exemplary, but what about those who find themselves overwhelmed? Will it be school or employment that takes a secondary role? Will the employer or the school allow any decrease in participation?

This is an important aspect to retention that should be considered. In many of our higher education institutions the admissions department is charged with only bringing in students, not retaining them. Universities may want to follow the model of many private high schools, which put the final word in retention into the admissions department.

I have looked, but have not found any examples of successful retention programs that address this growing problem. Know of any? Please let us know

Related Articles include:
Innovative Ways to Improve Undergraduate Retention

Additional sections of this journal address student recruiting and Innovative Practices in Communicating with Students. We have also placed all articles with a common theme of online education and distance education programs in a separate portal. New articles will be posted each Monday, please check back by bookmarking this site or placing a link to this Student Retention portal.

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College Student Retention

Mark Shay is the founder of EDU - a leading academic directory advertising provider, - part of Education Dynamics, a leader in student lead generation and enrollment management services.