We all know how competitive the Higher Ed space is. Colleges and universities work tirelessly to recruit qualified students and meet their enrollment goals, which has been more challenging than ever over the past few years.
What the research is showing us, however, is that schools do not invest nearly enough attention or resources toward retaining their students.
Among many other things, student retention rates depend on institutional support, program difficulty, a sense of community, course design, and student behavioral and demographic characteristics.
In this blog, we’ll highlight some insightful research and outline how schools can implement best practices to increase retention rates.
1 in 4 Students Leave their School Each Year
In the world of Higher Education, students are always going to transfer or drop out. Even the best universities in the world lose students from life events outside of their control.
When evaluating your institution’s retention numbers, it’s important to look at year-over-year trends to see how your school’s retention rates look compared to previous years. It’s one of the key metrics when assessing your institution’s health and profitability.
It’s also important, however, to take a step back and understand how you compare to industry averages.
According to the National Student Clearinghouse, the retention rate for four-year institutions is 76.3%. That means about 1 in 4 students left their school either to study elsewhere or to stop going to college altogether.
4 College Student Retention Strategies You Can Implement Today
Retention Rates are 10-20% Less for Students in Online Courses
Of course, there are so many variables that can impact an institution’s retention rate, including location, size, type, public vs. private, virtual vs. in-person, and non-profit vs. for-profit.
So, when assessing your school’s performance, it’s important to know that retention rates are about 10-20% less for students in online courses. As important as it is to have a solid student retention strategy in place, it’s even more important to focus on your online students.
The biggest takeaway from this statistic should be the emphasis on creating strong, personalized student experiences for those in online courses. As this article outlines, there are 5 best practices you should be following to increase student retention:
- Begin advising students as soon as they enroll
- Personalize your support for online learners
- Fine-tune your guidance based on academic performance
- Support each step of the student journey
- Assist with clinical and field placements
This research paper has more insightful information: Retention Strategies for Online Students: A Systematic Literature Review.
There are Predictable Indicators for Student Retention
There’s some good news when it comes to securing high retention rates: there are universal, predictable indicators that you can recognize early and act upon:
Achievement
First-semester GPA is the strongest single predictor of retention, but it’s also important to weigh past performance including high school GPA and SAT/ACT scores.
Demographic
Demographic variables like gender, race/ethnicity, and household income are
standard predictors in retention models, but these are much harder to measure.
Financial
As this study outlines, students who can afford to stay in college are more likely to be retained, while students who cannot afford it are more likely to drop out.
Social/Situational
How students relate to their peers will have an impact on their likelihood of staying enrolled. This category also includes commuters and transfer students.
Psychological
Focuses on personality traits, including openness, conscientiousness, extraversion agreeableness, and neuroticism.
The table below illustrates a simple framework for understanding how likely a student is to remain enrolled.
Early Intervention is Important
Recognizing the indicators is one thing, but more importantly, schools need to have an action plan in place to intervene when students show these signs and behaviors. Your plan should include early interventions, effective communication, and guidance to foster positive behavioral characteristics, among others.
Research shows that your student retention strategy should be built around three core focus areas:
- Strength-based advising
- Incremental and transparent goals
- Identify gaps in your student support
We cover this in more detail in our eBook, The Academic Advisor's Handbook for Disengaged Students. Use this guide to help recognize the early signs of student burnout and disengagement before the “point of no return.”
Learn how to catch these trends early and build a proactive plan to get students back on track—download it now.
