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Press Release from Primary Research Group, Inc.
Primary Research Group has published the Survey of Student Retention Policies in
Higher Education (ISBN: 1-57440-097-5). The Survey of Student Retention Policies in
Higher Education presents data from a benchmarking study of the retention policies of
40 American colleges. Data is broken out for public and private colleges, by Carnegie
class and enrollment level, to allow for easier benchmarking.
Some of the findings of the report are that:
• In the past year the colleges in the sample spent $9,696 on average on
conferences, webcasts, research reports and other specialized publications and
information resources about student retention. One college spent as much as
$100,000.
• Colleges in the sample spent a mean of $25,527 on consulting services for
student retention in the past year.
• 65% of the colleges sampled had a high-level administrator or Dean whose
primary responsibility is to maintain and increase student retention.
• The mean retention rate for the fall semester 2006 to the fall semester 2007
for the colleges in the sample was 73.8%; the median was virtually exactly the
same at 74%. The range was quite extraordinary; it went from 45% to 98%.
• Retention rates for part-time students were lower than retention rates for
full-time students.
• 40 to 45% of the colleges in the sample track retention rates by grade point average or SAT level.
• 47.5% of the colleges in the sample track retention rates of transferees into
the college.
• 17.5% of organizations sampled said that access to tutoring services does not
have much of an impact on student retention; 32.5% said that it has some
impact, while 37.5% said it had significant impact and 12.5% said it had a
dramatic impact.
• 10% of the colleges in the sample said that involvement in extra-curricular
activities does not have much of an impact on student retention, while 42.5%
said it had some impact and 30% said it had a significant impact. 17.5% noted
that it had a dramatic impact on student retention.
• We asked the colleges in the sample about the importance of exit interviews
for graduating students. We asked them: how important were these interviews
in helping you to develop and implement a retention strategy? About 9.4% said
that these interviews were absolutely invaluable in developing their retention
strategies and 28.1% said they were useful. Another 31.25% said they were
somewhat useful, while 28.1% said they were not really too useful and 3.13%
said they were virtually useless.
• 17.5% of the colleges in the sample maintain records that enabled them to
pinpoint students who were not participants in any or very few extracurricular
activities.
• About 46.2% of the colleges in the sample offer childcare services for
students with children.
• About 77% of the colleges in the sample say that they identify high-risk
students and then intervene at certain thresholds, such as number of classes or assignments missed or low grade point averages.
• About 76% of the colleges in the sample use students as tutors and only 6%
use specialized professional tutors. For roughly 82% of the respondents in the
sample, students did not pay for tutoring.
• 9.4% of the colleges in the sample had student advisory centers located in
residence halls.
• The mean number of full-time equivalent positions allocated to academic
advising was approximately 14.6;
• The mean percentage of students born abroad for the colleges in the sample
was 8.66%; the range was zero to 35% with a median of 4.5%.
• Overall, survey respondents estimated that 25.74% of students who
dropped out did so for economic reasons
The report presents data from 40 North American colleges about their student
retention efforts. Data is broken out for public and private colleges, by enrollment
size and by Carnegie Class, to allow for easier benchmarking.
The price of the report is $119.00 for the print version and $134.00 for the PDF
version, which allows for a print out and some electronic access.
Site licenses are also available. For a complete table of contents, excerpts and other
information, visit our website at www.primaryresearch.com.
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