Despite the lofty ideas of higher education bettering a society, colleges and universities are a business. If a college does not have the funds needed to operate, it will close and the students will be forced to find a new place to earn their degree. Of those who enrolled in a four-year institution, the U.S. Department of Education (2002) reported only 55% of all undergraduates who began their studies at a given four-year institution in 1995-96 with the goal of a bachelor’s degree completed that degree within six years at that same institution (including 59% of Caucasians and 41% of both African Americans and Hispanics). This means that nearly half of all students fail to achieve their goal of graduation from their first-choice college with a bachelor’s degree. Studies show there are many factors leading to attrition, and many of these key factors can be addressed if the right people know the student is considering transferring or dropping out.
From a practical perspective, it costs a university more money to recruit a new student than it does to retain a student who already attends the college. In their book Increasing Student Retention: New Challenges and Potential, Levitz, Noel, and Saluri (1985) suggest it takes three-to-five times more money to recruit rather than to retain a student. This statistic is further augmented when carried out over four years of enrollment if the student persists until graduation. The cost of recruiting a student is divided by each year the student attends an institution; therefore the longer a student stays at an institution the less of an impact of the investment on each student.
A 2007 report by Noel-Levitz, Inc. shows average expenditures for two-year public, four-year public, and four-year private institutions for recruiting a single student. The total costs include: enrollment staff salaries, benefits, capital costs, supplies, publications, consulting, vendors, and supervision. Two-year public institutions invested $121 recruiting each student, the least amount of all institutions surveyed. Four-year public institutions were next on the list at $398 per student; four-year private institutions average $1,941 spent on recruiting each student.
If a four-year private institution invests $1,941 on a student and that student transfers or drops out after their freshman year, the institution invested the total amount on that student in one year. However, if a student continues at an institution the recruiting investment is divided by four years, the cost is reduced to $485.50 per student. This example clearly links two financial pieces of institutional income, enrollment and retention. If enrollment is able to recruit a record number of students for an institution, but also has a record number of retention losses the increase in revenue is erased and possibly creates a larger deficit. Because of this, retention strategies must play into institutional budgeting as strongly, or stronger, as enrollment strategies.
The task then is to improve retention. Students are not retained for many reasons. Some of the major reasons are a lack of connection to the campus, not feeling the college cares enough about them, or believing that interest in their personal success was lacking. Studying and surveying students provides colleges and universities the information necessary to improve and build effective retention strategies and programming.
Survey results show that the most common areas of ok improvement include integration into campus social life and faculty academic advising. Richard Halpin (1990) believes there is a need for students to be connected to their institution, stating, "while little can be done to influence 'background characteristics' or 'environmental' circumstances of community college students, the creation of institutional mechanisms to maximize student/faculty contact is likely to result in greater levels of integration and hence persistence" (p. 31). The New Jersey Institute of Technology is one institution that was able to improve their retention by addressing this concern. Through, “the development of academic and co-curricular support and individual student intervention programs, NJIT has increased its freshman to sophomore retention rate to about 83%, a 10% increase” (Bloom & Kelly, 2008, p. 1). This is a major accomplishment that had a direct positive affect on the revenue of the institution.
In order to have an effective program staff and faculty must be trained to notice retention risks. College staff have a responsibility to provide for the needs of the students while faculty have a responsibility to provide a quality educational experience. Laurie Schreiner (2009), director of the doctoral programs at Azusa Pacific University in a research study published by Noel-Levitz, Inc., suggests it is important to connect the student with the campus as soon as they arrive, because the college experience has a significant impact on their decision to persist at a university. She states, “comparing this factor across the four class levels, its greatest predictive ability was among first year students. Clearly an important part of starting students off right is to help them feel at home on campus” (p. 4).
Not only does the campus life need to be effective at connecting the student, Michael Cain (1999) adds, "the teaching faculty is the key to the …college’s work. Other factors in the system, such as the support staff, administrators, politicians and students might help draw up the route for the trip, but it is the faculty members that drive the bus." (p. 47) If the student connects with their faculty, especially in their degree field, they will have a connection with their desired career path. Much of this connection revolves around the impact and opportunity the degree will offer the student upon graduation. Studies consistently show faculty play the largest part in helping students connect due to their knowledge and involvement in the industry; yet communicating with a large number of diverse advisees has the potential to be a daunting task for even the most committed faculty.
Social networking has the potential to provide an early connection for new students with the campus through publicizing intramurals, clubs, socials, volunteer opportunities, student organizations, and other events. One company seeking to bridge the gap between social networking and college staff and faculty is Inigral.com. This company builds pages for institutions using an application on facebook.com called “Schools on Facebook” to open up a social portal for students, faculty, and staff (Inigral.com, n.d.). This institutional page is designed for the institution to connect future, current, and past students with the campus. Using the second most visited site on the Internet, facebook.com, Schools on Facebook has the potential to reach the majority of college students. This could be a large step to improve communication and connection between colleges and students.
References:
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