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Data-Based Decision Making for Retention - Education Articles

Tags: retention, research, RAS, jlearning on 2008-08-29 -All Annotations (0) -About

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For example, administrators should explore whether attrition is higher among students who take out alternative loans. Clearly for these students, Stafford eligibility is already insufficient to cover the gap between charges, grants, and family ability to pay.
institutions may find that attrition increases dramatically among students who enter with high levels of "unmet need" (cost minus expected family contribution minus grant aid). If so, it may be necessary to cover some portion of tuition increases for these students to improve retention. Before making that decision, however, do a cost-benefit analysis to see if the projected increase in retention will more than cover the cost of providing additional funding to all of those who would have continued their enrollment without it.
Some institutions offer new merit scholarships to continuing students who might not have been eligible on entry but are now performing better than their entry statistics would have predicted. Academic departments also frequently use endowed funds to recognize outstanding performance of upperclassmen. Although such programs may make staff and students "feel good," retention analysis typically finds that students performing well academically are more likely to come back, whether or not they receive financial recognition for their academic success.
Colleges and universities typically conduct extensive research to understand their price and prestige positions against competitors and to ensure that future increases won't impact demand from new students. But when it comes to continuing students, little has been done to track how retention (especially of aid recipients versus full-pay students) has been affected in the past by various rates of increase.
Typically, returning students are less price sensitive than new students, so holding tuition constant for returning students seldom results in a corresponding increase in retention. However, leaders need to be conscious of how increases and aid policies have impacted past persistence, especially when contemplating multiple years of aggressive increases.
Even among students who were performing well academically, persistence has fallen off sharply for those with unmet need (need minus grants from all sources) of more than $11,000. Consequently, over the course of the next three semesters, some students with a >_2.25 cumulative GPA and with high levels of unmet need will receive additional grant assistance.