Retention is an important source of discussion among administrators, faculty, and staff across all colleges and universities. Many factors have been explored to determine what can be done to increase persistence and graduation rates. Points of interest related to student retention are discussed, as well as recommendations for administrators based on the literature. Factors that drive student retention in traditional universities and in online higher education are explored.
Retention occurs when students maintain enrollment until graduation (Baaras & Arnold, 2015). Colleges and universities across the country face difficulty retaining students and several models have been explored to increase student persistence. Increasing student engagement and satisfaction is a consistent theme in the literature (Schreiner & Nelson, 2014; Strahan & Crede, 2015). Additionally, the influence of demographics (D’Amico & Dika, 2014), student characteristics (Baaras & Arnold, 2015), academic performance (Davidson & Wilson, 2014), first year seminar courses (Brewer & Yucedag-Ozcan, 2013; Reid, Reynolds, & Perkins-Auman, 2015; Rogerson & Poock, 2014), financial issues (Mendoza, Malcolm, & Parish, 2014), tutoring (Grillo & Leist, 2014) and entrance requirements (Crisp, Horn, Dizinno, & Barlo, 2014) on retention are discussed. Drivers of student retention are considered with a view toward online higher education retention drivers such as system availability, privacy, value and loyalty (Kilburn, Kilburn, & Cates, 2014). Proactive approaches, such as an academic early alert system, are also explored (Tampke, 2013).