The Survey Of Best Practices In Student Retention 2013 Edition

This report looks closely at the student retention efforts of 50 American colleges and universities including the University of Delaware, Auburn, Sarah Lawrence and Georgia State University, among many others. The 100+ page study gives detailed data on retention rates overall and for many specific categories of students such as distance learning students, graduate students, part time students, and other categories. The study presents highly detailed data on the retention effort including current and planned spending on consultants, information resources and conferences and retention staff. The study helps retention professionals to answer questions such as: what do peers consider to be the most important elements of a retention effort? How important is financial aid? Counseling? Tutoring? Student activities? Early identification efforts for troubled students? Data is broken out for size and type of college (community college, 4-year, MA/PHD and research university) as well as for public and private colleges and, critically in this case, by level of tuition.

The study presents data from 30 colleges and universities in the USA about their recent retention experiences, with data spanning 2018 through Fall 2021. Survey participants discuss how their pandemic experience impacted key retention-oriented student services such as financial aid, academic advising, tutoring, childcare, career services and assessment and how these services will be re-shaped, or not, going forward. Survey participants give key retention rate data for graduate students, adult students, undergraduate students, low income students, STEM students and other demographics and categories. The report also looks at spending on retention-oriented consulting services, both current and expected, and looks particularly closely at college efforts, and satisfaction with such efforts, to retain students in lower income and other socially disadvantaged groups. In open-ended questions, survey participants describe what they have done well, or not, in recent years and what their expectations are for the near future. Data in the report is broken out by size and type or Carnegie class of college, as well as for college tuition level, and for public and private colleges.

The study presents detailed data and commentary on student-retention issues from a survey of 38 different institutions, including 15 public and 23 private colleges and universities. Among the subjects discussed: spending on retention consulting services and information sources, staff dimensions of the retention effort, the role of faculty in retention, the role of student services such as tutoring, academic advising, facilities management and financial aid, among others. The report also looks at the kinds of retention software in use, the use of exit interviews, retention committees, predictive modeling for early alert warnings, and much more. Just a few of the report's many findings are that: *Only about 29% of survey participants maintain records enabling them to pinpoint students who are not engaged in any or very few extra-curricular activities; close to 35% of private colleges have such records vs. 20% of public colleges.*Research universities were much more likely than others to feel that the quality of student housing was a significant factor in student retention.*More than 30% of private colleges noted an increase in their financial aid to students over the past two years and far fewer of them than their public college counterparts noted a decrease in financial aid.*26.7% of public schools see better retention rates in their future vs. 47.8% of private colleges.

Drawing on studies funded by the Lumina Foundation, the nation's largest private foundation focused solely on increasing Americans' success in higher education, the authors revise current theories of college student departure, including Tinto's, making the important distinction between residential and commuter colleges and universities, and thereby taking into account the role of the external environment and the characteristics of social communities in student departure and retention. A unique feature of the authors' approach is that they also consider the role that the various characteristics of different states play in degree completion and first-year persistence. First-year college student retention and degree completion is a multi-layered, multi-dimensional problem, and the book's recommendations for state- and institutional-level policy and practice will help policy-makers and planners at all levels as well as anyone concerned with institutional retention rates—and helping students reach their maximum potential for success—understand the complexities of the issue and develop policies and initiatives to increase student persistence.

This report studies the retention practices of over 60 North American colleges and universities, exploring the most critical factors to retention success as cited by the survey participants. The comprehensive data in the report covers a wide array of statistics and trends essential to any administration's assessment of its own retention policies, including detailed retention rates for first-year and part-time students, institutional spending on consultants and conferences, overall tutoring efforts, and the perceived impact of various student services on retention success. How does the current economic climate affect financial aid and tuition, and how do these, in turn, affect student retention? What roles do exit interviews play? What about academic advising and counseling services, or childcare services, or peer mentoring? The 116-page report presents data broken out by enrollment size, public or private school status, and type of college, offering end users a look at the strategies and practices of a broad range of institutions. Now administrators can see which schools track retention rates by gender, or by declared academic major, by race or ethnicity, and more. Participants share their success stories as well as the pitfalls of student retention and their expectations for the future.