"As the variety of programs and providers increases, a number of new initiatives are emerging as retention tools. These include online courses for on-campus students, on-campus courses for online students, moves between full-time and part-time status, and study abroad."

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.

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Innovative Ways to Improve Undergraduate Retention

Higher Education spends huge amount of money in recruiting students but has long not addressed a huge issue, that of retention. One survey has 40% of freshman and sophomores dropping out of college or transferring to another institution (cite). Another states that 60% of all bachelor's degrees are awarded to students who started their education at another institution (cite).

Schools spend a huge amount of money to bring in students but seem to not spend much on keeping them on campus. Traditional retention methods center around counseling, providing guidance to students that identify themselves as unhappy or unsatisfied with their current situation. Counseling in this form can be psychological dealing with homesickness, social integration, etc. or mastery or resources, perhaps directing a student to other campus departments to solve problems like roommates, living situations, academic major or work level. New roommates, add-drop of courses or introduction to social and support groups are often the resolution of such counseling.

As the variety of programs and providers increases, a number of new initiatives are emerging as retention tools. These include online courses for on-campus students, on-campus courses for online students, moves between full-time and part-time status, and study abroad. By altering the academic setting, these innovations can increase student retention. Here are a couple of examples:

At Dickinson College, a college in the small Pennsylvania town of Carlisle, full-time undergraduate students start getting drawn into the city life of Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, each within a two hour's drive away. As they approach 21 years of age, they look to take road trips to enjoy the social scene and may well start to consider transfers to schools like Penn or Georgetown. Student life and administrative staff try to identify these students and suggest that they might really enjoy a semester or year in Cameroon, China, France, England, or Italy. If successful in this redirect, a semester or year away from Carlisle may well fulfill the students' desire to experience the world beyond Carlisle, AND when that student returns, they will be so close to graduation that they are much more likely to spend their last two or three semesters finishing up, leaving Penn and Georgetown to grad school choices!

Another great use of study abroad comes in its use as incentive for improvement in academic performance. An advisor from University of Texas was recently discussing how at UT, every study abroad application is provisionally accepted to a study abroad program, attendance is dependent on achieving a 3.2 GPA. This grade point requirement forces students to focus on academics and not slack-off the semester before leaving. This concept can be extended using a GPA requirement as incentive for a student who wants to study abroad. If schools would reach out to sophomore's with declining grades and promote study abroad, they may well re-energize a student's performance which could lead to more focus on academics which should translate to less sophomore's dropping out (or being kicked out) of school for academic reasons. Both of these study abroad examples were highlighted in a session called "Using Study Abroad to Improve Retention(link)" given at a recent conference and whose presentation is available here (same link) to download.

Related Articles can be found on the portal:
Retaining Students

Additional sections of this journal address student recruiting and Innovative Practices in Communicating with Students. We have also placed all articles with a comon 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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