The freshman drop out rate is an issue facing colleges across the country. The retention rates between a student’s freshman and sophomore is the lowest of the rates for the four years of college. The more selective a college is, the higher the retention rate. So a private school is likely to have a much higher rate than a four year college and a college such as Harvard will also have higher retention rates. The three main reasons for such a high attrition rate for freshman students is money, academic struggles and the expectations of the student are not met.
There is a generic national study given to freshman students called the “Nessie”. The Nessie asks questions like:
How often was electronic medium to discuss or complete an assignment? (never, seldom, somewhat,
often, always)
What was the quality of relationships with faculty members? (scale of 1 to 7 or helpfulness)
If you were to start college over again, would you choose this institution?
I am not sure how one could assess why freshmen are not returning based on questions like this! These questions do not seem to be helpful nor do they seem to give any reasons why a student might not return the following year.
“How College Affects Students” is book written by Terenzini, a professor of Higher Education at Penn State and Pascarella, a co-director of the Center for Research on Undergraduate Education at the University of Iowa. These authors did a study at 19 liberal art schools gathering background information of freshman students, their experiences, and recorded their outcomes after the 1st and 4th years. They did student appraisals of teacher organization of material, how effectively the instructor utilized class time, reviewed the subject matter, etc. “Good teaching is not defined by test results” according the a recent article “What Spurs Students to Stay in College and Learn.” Their study found that their was a 30% increase in returns for students that experience good teaching practices.
I feel like this information is common sense but I am thankful that this information is documented. I would also think that the students that have the better social experiences also return at a higher rate. Meaning that if the student feels more involved with the school and has been socially successful, the retention rates would also be higher for such students. But I also feel that some of this is up to the individual student, too. And according to Pascarella and Terenzini, “because individual efforts and involvement are the critical determinants of impact, institutions should focus on the ways they can shape their academic, interpersonal, and extracurricular offerings to encourage student engagement."
