NBC News: Battling Low Enrollment Through Retention

[Wahoo Redux]

NBC News: Colleges' new solution to enrollment declines: Reducing the number of dropouts

[dismalist]

Oh, peoples: If you're gonna get divorced, get divorced early.

[marshwiggle]

In my experience, the rate of attrition for academic reasons is a lot higher than the rate for bureaucratic reasons. I know there seems to be a lot more paperwork involved for lots of things in the US, but I'd be curious to hear what others think about how big an impact this kind of intervention is likely to have.

[RatGuy]

In my experience, the rate of attrition for academic reasons is a lot higher than the rate for bureaucratic reasons. I know there seems to be a lot more paperwork involved for lots of things in the US, but I'd be curious to hear what others think about how big an impact this kind of intervention is likely to have.

I nearly never know if/why students drop out. We have a number of plans in place to avoid losing first-semester students. We have a university term for the "shuffling" of students from one admin dept to the next (financial aid, bursar, registrar, advisor, student success) and we try to minimize that problem. But I've got no idea how many of my students might drop for academic reasons. If they tell me that they're leaving, it's because they want to transfer to a better school (we lose a lot to UNC and Clemson). Well, there was that one kid from Wisconsin last semester who told the class he was dropping out because the South is too liberal for him, but he's staying in town because the Southern girls are more attractive.

[Hibush]

In my experience, the rate of attrition for academic reasons is a lot higher than the rate for bureaucratic reasons. I know there seems to be a lot more paperwork involved for lots of things in the US, but I'd be curious to hear what others think about how big an impact this kind of intervention is likely to have.

Numerically, the academic failures may outnumber the potential successes who get lost in bureaucracy. But the latter group seems more important to retain.

[downer]

In other breaking news, the Normans invaded England.

[mahagonny]

In my experience, the rate of attrition for academic reasons is a lot higher than the rate for bureaucratic reasons. I know there seems to be a lot more paperwork involved for lots of things in the US, but I'd be curious to hear what others think about how big an impact this kind of intervention is likely to have.

I nearly never know if/why students drop out. We have a number of plans in place to avoid losing first-semester students. We have a university term for the "shuffling" of students from one admin dept to the next (financial aid, bursar, registrar, advisor, student success) and we try to minimize that problem. But I've got no idea how many of my students might drop for academic reasons. If they tell me that they're leaving, it's because they want to transfer to a better school (we lose a lot to UNC and Clemson). Well, there was that one kid from Wisconsin last semester who told the class he was dropping out because the South is too liberal for him, but he's staying in town because the Southern girls are more attractive.

Given the reputation professors have for being radical left, perhaps one could estimate that for every one person who has the guts to say the environment is too liberal for them, 100 more are nearby. Or rmaybe ten...?

[Ruralguy]

Our school likes to do big studies on this (thankfully, internally researched by people who understand stats)  every few years. We nearly always conclude that there is no one main reason or a likely magic bullet. Academic intervention tends to only help students who want to be here, and especially those who have a real reason to succeed academically (but it does help, so we keep it!). The others just let themselves fail, often working hard at it, and then go. I know professors hate to hear it, but sports help a lot, even for some excellent students (helps us not lose them to a better academic school with worse sports or , say , better teams that wouldn't field them).  I think sometimes though that the administration will double down a one small element they read, such as a couple of students wishing there were more readily available boats to take out and then building a boat house and buying more boats, rather than focusing on the huge number who have serious drug issues.

[Wahoo Redux]

We work at a place like FSU without the sun and palm trees.  We have around a 33% graduation rate.  Like Ratguy, no one I know has any idea why our students drop out. 

Anecdotally, it would appear that many of our students test the waters, find that college is uninteresting and / or difficult (even with our grade inflation), and leave. They tend to be very polite but dull peeps with no perceptible humor or intellectual curiosity.  We are a mostly commuter school, so we would not be able to create many more on-campus student jobs, as FSU did, but our city and region is so impoverished one would think a college degree, even one as lowly as ours, would be very valuable.

And undoubtedly we have a ton of economic and environmental issues which negatively affect students. 

The other thing I always wonder is where are these colleges getting the money to hire "retention specialists" and the like?  Somebody has to pay that salary----what do these sorts of positions cost the students in tuition?

Still, our school is in peril.  We are deflating.  Our admin certainly doesn't seem to know what to do and neither does the union. 

I wish Polly Mere was here.  Her caustic insights were combative, for sure, but very good.

[mahagonny]

The other thing I always wonder is where are these colleges getting the money to hire "retention specialists" and the like?  Somebody has to pay that salary----what do these sorts of positions cost the students in tuition?

Ditto for diversity staff.

[artalot]

I work at a much smaller private school, so I do tend to know why my students drop out and it is very rarely for academic reasons. It is almost always money or mental health. We have one retention specialist and when I've sent the money students to this person, the response has been to tell the students to take out more loans (face palm). We lose a lot of the mental health students, in part because their grades start tanking and that only worsens their depression, anxiety, etc.
We're all about retention now - I fill out all kinds of reports on the students - but it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference, especially because we don't have nearly enough mental health staff. And, to mahagonny's point, a lot of the depressed students are LGBTQ+, students of color, neurologically atypical - they are diverse. So, I think that properly funded and staffed DEI offices with real mandates and initiatives work wonders. It's just that those are rare.

[Wahoo Redux]

...when I've sent the money students to this person, the response has been to tell the students to take out more loans (face palm).

Agreed, but to be fair, what else can we tell students regarding money?  Work more?  Go to school part time while working and pay as you go?

These are the things that send students packing.

No silver bullets, I guess.

[Hibush]

...when I've sent the money students to this person, the response has been to tell the students to take out more loans (face palm).

Agreed, but to be fair, what else can we tell students regarding money?  Work more?  Go to school part time while working and pay as you go?

These are the things that send students packing.

No silver bullets, I guess.

I don't think you can expect to retain someone who can't afford your services.

[Hibush]

I work at a much smaller private school, so I do tend to know why my  We lose a lot of the mental health students, in part because their grades start tanking and that only worsens their depression, anxiety, etc.
We're all about retention now - I fill out all kinds of reports on the students - but it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference, especially because we don't have nearly enough mental health staff.

My school spends far more on mental health services than on the climbing wall. That may be the expense that is growing fastest and putting pressure on tuition.

[marshwiggle]

I work at a much smaller private school, so I do tend to know why my  We lose a lot of the mental health students, in part because their grades start tanking and that only worsens their depression, anxiety, etc.
We're all about retention now - I fill out all kinds of reports on the students - but it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference, especially because we don't have nearly enough mental health staff.

My school spends far more on mental health services than on the climbing wall. That may be the expense that is growing fastest and putting pressure on tuition.

I'd really like to know the ROI for that. Specifically, are there a lot of students, who with some help, can succeed, or are a large proportion of those students ones who will always struggle, with many of them  ultimately dropping out or failing anyway?