Enrolment in university enabling programs has expanded dramatically in the last decade as universities strive to increase enrolments, particularly of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Offering enabling study by distance education has been part of this expansion with the benefit of providing access to a wider enrolment base. The purpose…

Increased federal attention to student completion metrics and uncertain financial forecasts have heightened the tenor of student retention conversations. Improved institutional retention rates will lead to higher completion rates and relieve some funding concerns. To accomplish these improvements, institutions have invested in analytics to better…

This investigation sought to determine when colleges should conduct assessments to identify first-year students at risk of dropping out. Thirty-five variables were used to predict the persistence of 2,024 first-year students from four universities in the southeastern United States. The predictors were subdivided into groups according to when they…

Along with the massification of higher education and increasing costs, the pressure on institutions to retain all students to degree completion has been mounting. Early identification of students who are at risk of leaving an institution may help institutions to target and retain these students. This study investigated whether freshmen behaviors,…

Affecting university rankings, school reputation, and financial well-being, student retention has become one of the most important measures of success for higher education institutions. From the institutional perspective, improving student retention starts with a thorough understanding of the causes behind the attrition. Such an understanding is…

Student persistence and achievement are areas of significant concern for institutions of higher education. With national college graduation rates hovering in the 50% range, it is important for colleges and universities to understand which student characteristics and campus environments lead to greater success, as well as the expectations students…

This is the fifth in a series of articles describing an attrition prediction and intervention project at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa. The project was originally presented in the 83(2) issue (Miller 2007). The statistical model for predicting attrition was described in the 83(3) issue (Miller and Herreid 2008). The methods and…

The purpose of this study was to examine how the mode of instructional delivery, campus face-to-face or online, affected dropout relative to students' academic and demographic characteristics. A quantitative study was conducted to analyze the academic and demographic characteristics of newly admitted, matriculated degree-seeking students (N = 640)…

Of 150 American Indian nursing students in a tribal college, 38 completed the program. Completers were significantly older and had higher Test of Adult Basic Education math and language scores. High school grade point average and number of dependents were not significant predictors of completion. (Contains 25 references.) (SK)

The study presented in this document was designed to test, through path analysis, a modified version of the Bean and Metzner (1985) model of nontraditional student attrition in an effort to understand why older students frequently dropped out of a large public university in the Midwest. Four variables from Bean and Metzner's model were deleted and…

The impact of financial assistance on students' decisions on whether to discontinue college studies was investigated. Students enrolled in either two- or four-year institutions were included. Grants, loans, and college work-study funds were considered as financial aid. A casual model was used to illustrate how withdrawal was affected by…

Family socioeconomic status, ability, high school curriculum, scholarship receipt, age, race, marital status, enrollment status, employment status, and type of college attended were examined. The importance of these factors varied widely with year of college completed. Results demonstrated that these factors cannot be molded into a single equation…

Examined the relationship between selected independent variables and graduation from college five years after students (N=1,943) first matriculated. Results showed that the variables accounted for less than six percent of the variability in the graduate/nongraduate criterion with high school rank being the best individual predictor. (Author/LLL)

A previous study by Edwards and Waters (1982) was replicated and extended by incorporating a personal needs/college climate discrepancy index and a voluntary/nonvoluntary attrition breakdown. The use of undifferentiated, nonvoluntary, and voluntary attrition criteria yielded substantially different results in both the predictors of attrition and…

Examined the efficacy of an ACT-based merit index in predicting undergraduate college students' first-to-second-year retention. Results indicated that the ACT-index, although a significant predictor of retention, failed to predict retention as well as the more traditional ACT-Composite score. Evidence did indicate, however, that further…