This month, from New Orleans to Minneapolis, higher education professionals will be gathering at a variety of national conferences to talk about retention — because keeping students is as critical as recruiting them. 

Ursinus College has had success using some creative markers to not only track, but predict, students who may struggle on campus.

Since 2017, administrators at Ursinus have used data from the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE) to target intentional outreach to students who may be at risk for leaving college. Two particular questions inform their efforts:

• Was Ursinus your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd choice when you applied to college?
  Administrators learned that the average Year 1 to Year 2 retention rate for students for whom Ursinus was their first choice was 90%. However, for students who ranked Ursinus 2nd or lower, the average retention rate dropped to 83.3%.
• Do you expect to graduate from Ursinus? Similarly, administrators learned that students who expected to graduate from Ursinus had an actual Year 1 to Year 2 retention rate of 89.1%, but students who did not expect to graduate from the school had a retention rate of only 69.2%.

Using these markers to identify vulnerable students, Ursinus bolstered already robust first year advising practices to reach out to these undergraduates, and working closely with faculty who interact with them, made an effort to ensure that each vulnerable student forged a strong relationship at Ursinus — with a faculty member, an advisor, a peer counselor, an affinity or activity group — any relationship that reinforced a connection to the school.

This extra-mile investment in individual students has proven successful. Students who answered the question about first choice or lower in 2016 had a retention rate of 79.3%. After the intervention targeting that response began in 2017, the retention rate for students for whom Ursinus was a second or lower choice rose to 87.5%.

And for students who initially stated that they did not expect to graduate from Ursinus, retention rates after the intervention was launched in 2017 increased from 62.5% to 73.9%.

These specially targeted groups are part of an overall advising-based retention strategy at Ursinus — including a cohort-based weekly advising requirement for first year students, deep involvement and intensive training for faculty advisors, and embedding the student advising experience in the Ursinus Quest — the school’s core curriculum, which is based on four questions that students apply to every aspect of their college experience.

This very hands-on, individualized approach to retention requires a deep investment of time and energy, but it is also low-tech and replicable, and demonstrates how a little data can go a long way.

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE or “the Nessie”)
http://nsse.indiana.edu/
Robust data gathered annually from surveys reflecting a wide range of higher education institutions. Also authors of the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE or “the Betsy”), and the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE). Navigating the website can not only provide data, but also case studies of how colleges and universities use it. Annual survey results are released each November. 

National Center for Education Statistics
https://nces.ed.gov/
An entity of the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Services, the NCES collects, analyzes, and presents data on education from early childhood through post-secondary programs, in the U.S. and abroad.

Most recent NCES retention data:
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_ctr.asp 

Higher Ed Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS)
https://www.hedsconsortium.org/
Focused on undergraduate liberal arts education and strategies for student success, HEDS is the site for data and knowledge exchange among primarily smaller liberal arts member institutions and hosts an annual conference.

Retention-related conferences in Fall 2019

• NODA, Association for Orientation, Transition, Retention in Higher Education Retention Symposium, October 19–20, Houston
  https://www.nodaweb.org/page/retention_sym
• Academic Impressions, Developing a Comprehensive Retention Plan, October 28–30, Minneapolis
  https://www.academicimpressions.com/developing-a-comprehensive-retention-plan/
• Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange, Oct 28–31, New Orleans 
  https://csrde.ou.edu/symposium/

“That experience taught me everything,” explains Carlie. “It was definitely an eye-opener that I wouldn’t be able to glide through college, even in subjects I thought I was good at! I had to be proactive, and in turning the situation around, I learned a lot about myself. I was never one to reach out and ask for help — back home people came to me for help! — so it was a big thing for me to realize I couldn’t succeed on my own.”

Carlie’s proactive outreach paid off. Not only did she turn around her grade completely (an encouraging email from her professor the night before the final exam didn’t hurt!), she has declared a Biology major and now serves as a recitation tutor for the same class that was her freshman nemesis. She’s looking ahead to graduate school in behavioral psychology, and hopes to work in elementary education with children who have special needs, a reminder of the good that can come when a student doesn’t give up on a school, and a school doesn’t give up on a student.