Rethinking College Student RetentionDrawing 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. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | |
State Policy and Student Success | |
Recommendations forInstitutional Policy | |
Explaining College Student Persistence | |
The RevisionofTintos Theory forResidential | |
A Theory of Student Persistence in Commuter | |
Chapter | |
Key Factors in Student Persistence | |
Chapter | |
Significant Influences on Core Factors | |
In Summary | |
Implications for Theory | |
Design ofthe Studies Tables | |
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academic advising academic and intellectual analytical cascading Berger Braxton campus Chapter college attendance college or university collegeor collegeor university colleges and universities Collegiate Experiences Survey communal potential commuter colleges commuting students Cronbach's alpha empirical support enrollment environment Faculty Interest faculty teaching firstyear student orientation fulltime graduation greater the student's higher education Hirschy institution to student institutional integrity institutional policies intellectual development interactions interest in students inthe McClendon 2004 multivariate oftheir oncampus oruniversity parental educational level Pascarella perceives persistence in commuter persistence in residential policies and practices positive influence possible sources proactive social adjustment propositions psychosocial engagement racial discrimination recommendations regression regression analysis residence halls revised theory social integration sources of influence statistically significant strongly agree strongly disagree Student agreement Student Departure student entry characteristics student perceptions student retention student welfare Student's Experience Survey subsequent institutional commitment Survey item Terenzini theory of student Tinto's theory tothe University Student's Experience variables