What’s working in student retention on campuses

Because I’m a retention consultant, it’s probably no surprise to most of you that the number-one set of questions I get when I consult with college faculty and staff is, “Are we doing the right things for our students?” “What are other schools like us doing?” “How do we know what’s effective?” To begin answering these questions, take a look at 2011 Student Retention Practices at Four-Year and Two-Year Institutions, the latest report in our Benchmark Poll Report Series.

At first glance, there aren’t too many surprises in the report’s rankings. The standard retention strategies appear at or near the top of the lists of the most effective practices for the two-year and four-year public and private sectors. Some sectors rank effectiveness differently, but the old standbys are there. First-year experience programs, academic advising, academic support, early alert, and at-risk programming all make the list. (Please remember “at-risk” is institutionally defined and has multiple meanings to the reader.)

The report also compares effective practices across sectors on page 29, though I wouldn’t spend too much time comparing them since the environment for each sector is so different.

But this year’s report caught my eye for another reason. There is one practice that didn’t make the “ten most effective” in any sector. Let’s talk about it, and maybe you can bring your perspectives to the conversation. It’s the one that, as I get more experienced (read “older”) in this field, I have begun to question why it’s not at the top or near the top of our lists? Maybe it’s just me. Almost 66 percent of two-year public colleges reported using it, while 52 percent of four-year public universities and almost 51 percent of four-year private institutions reported using it. At the same time, about 40 percent of two-year publics, 30 percent of four-year publics, and 42 percent of four-year privates rated it as “minimally effective.”

A practice that can help measure effectiveness and predict degree completion
Can you guess which practice I’m referring to? For the publics, it is tied to the performance funding looming or in process in many states. For the private colleges, it feeds sustained revenue flows and justifies continued investment in student success operations. Based upon your particular economic environment, perhaps you’ll want to consider beefing up this one so that you’ll be able to predict more effectively where students are in your completion pipeline. Yes, the practice I’m referring to is tracking credit hours attempted versus credit hours earned each term for each student and institutionally.

Think about these ideas and their implications for your services:

• What if you knew at the end of each term the number of credit hours completed versus attempted for each student?
• What if every advisor, counselor, and student success professional—wherever they’re situated at your college—was expected to know each term, as a standard of practice, if each student was on track to graduate and/or complete his or her program of study?
• What if you set credits attempted/completed goals for your institution and expected your faculty and staff to achieve a certain completion percentage as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator)?

I know it’s not easy to track this and certainly the implications for service delivery might be substantial at your college, but isn’t completion and graduation what we’re all about? If not, shouldn’t it be?

I kept thinking about “John,” a former student of mine. He came to my former college with all kinds of barriers. He was dyslexic, had processing problems, read and wrote at a developmental level—and he wanted to be a middle school teacher.

My first inclination was to redirect immediately. If I had done that, I would have harmed him greatly. After careful degree and academic support planning, we were able to put him on a path that worked for him. He has been a middle school teacher for nearly ten years now and still stays in touch with me. He is quite successful. (I always say, if I forget why I do what I do, it’s time to look for other opportunities.)

We’ve spent the past 50 years focusing on retention, as we should, but completion is the end game. I believe that academic advising leading to degree/program completion is probably where we should put most of our resources. If the student has a plan and someone on your campus is actively monitoring the plan and intervening appropriately, hats off to you. Tell us how you do it. I’m sure many of our readers would like to know.