Attrition and retention factors at four private institutions

The reduction in the pool of 18-year-olds available for college recruitment has forced many institutions to examine retention procedures. This study was designed to determine retention rates and to identify variables that influence retention at four private church-related institutions.

The 2313 subjects were obtained from the entering freshman class of the Fall 1975 term. The American College Testing Program provided a magnetic tape of student data. A list of freshman names was generated from the tape and a transcript covering five academic years was furnished by the institutions for their subjects. The subjects were then classified into one of three categories: Persisters, Voluntary Withdrawals, or Academic Withdrawals.

Two statistical procedures were used--a two way Crosstabulation and a Stepwise Discriminant Analysis. The two way Crosstabulation indicated that the institutions varied in retention rates from 34.8 percent to 51.1 percent.

The Stepwise Discriminant Analysis examined Academic, Sociological, Financial, Personal, and Miscellaneous variables. The Stepwise Discriminant Analysis identified factors that accurately classified between 60.47 percent and 66.89 percent of the students into 1 of the 3 classification categories. The best predictor variable at each institution was the first term grade-point average.

The results of this study allowed two observations. (1) Only one institution fell below the average national retention rate. (2) There are factors capable of predicting retention behavior of a substantial portion of the student population at the four institutions examined.