College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success

Abstract

Swail reviews College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success edited by Alan Seidman.

Seidman, Alan (Ed.). College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success. Westport, CT: ACE/ Praeger Publishers, 2005.350 pp. Cloth: $49.95. ISBN 0-275-98193-2.

The massification of higher education in the United States, now standing at 14 million students and counting, has also magnified the issue of student retention and persistence in our nation's colleges and universities. Over one third of beginning postsecondary students leave without a degree after six years, and only half of those with a goal of a bachelor's degree reach their goal (Berkner, He, & Cataldi, 2002, p. 10).

Because students receive a public subsidy to attend these institutions and because higher education is a big government-sponsored industry, retention is at the heart of the college-cost dialogue on Capitol Hill and in state capitals. Even with the knowledge that higher education-especially open-door institutions-performs a public service, politicians are keenly aware of the inefficiency and expense of our system and are beginning to ask for greater accountability from college administrators.

College Student Retention, a new ACE/Praeger book edited by Alan Seidman, provides a perspective on issues important to the study of student retention. In doing so, he has assembled an excellent cadre of authors, including Vincent Tinto, John Bean, Alberto Cabrera, and John Braxton. The book covers important ground in many respects but also has its share of academic "filler." Because it is an academic publication, my guess is that most readers will enjoy the academic discussion. Others looking for more pragmatic, practical information won't find it here.

Some of the best chapters include those by Linda Hagedorn, Thomas Mortenson, Bean, and Tinto. Mortenson, editor of Postsecondary Opportunity and senior scholar at the Pell Institute, writes about the various measures and definitions of retention and persistence. In fact, the title of his chapter, "Measurements of Persistence," brings to light the dissonance in our addressing the issue as either "retention" or "persistence." Albeit similar concepts, they are not the same thing, but no one seems to mind. Retention typically focuses on passing from one period of time to another, as in semester-to-semester or year-to-year. Persistence is reserved for a student's ability to achieve the end goal, usually a certificate or degree. This issue is described in Chapter 4 by Linda Hagedorn, although she uses an National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) definition of the two terms that I find unsatisfying.

Mortenson does an excellent job of defining the types of measurements and the data sources available. He also provides information on the strengths and limitations of each measure. Typical of his analytical work, Mortenson stresses ACT and U.S. Census data, even though the latter are very limited in telling us much about retention or persistence. Census data do tell us about participation but are limited by self-reporting and weak samples. ACT data are generally very good.

What I found astonishing was the absence of NCES data, especially the longitudinal datasets and IPEDS. Longitudinal sets, such as National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS), Beginning Postsecondary Student (BPS), and Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) are staples of retention research and should be included in Mortenson's chapter. Cabrera et al. appropriately use the High School & Beyond (HSB) database in Chapter 7.

An excellent follow-up to Mortenson's chapter is Linda Hagedorn's chapter, "How to Define Retention." Since the two cover similar ground, it may have been better to have placed them backto-back. Hagedorn showcases the complexity of calculating "retention" statistics and warns that graduation rates are not retention. If anything, this chapter is an argument for unit-record data collection and analysis. Those of us who work with data understand the need to go that route, even if a few association and college heads do not.

John Braxton and Amy Hirschy's "Theoretical Developments in the Study of College Student Departure" provides a historical background on the development of retention theory, for those that find this information useful. Tinto's work is always at the core of these discussions, and Braxton has spent considerable career time trying to modify Tinto's theory, with limited success. In most books like this, I find a perspective on theory very useful, especially for newcomers to the field. This chapter suffices, but I found several inconsistencies, including the fact that the diagram of Braxton et al.'s modification of Tinto's theory omitted "academic ability," perhaps the most important background variable in the student retention model.

In addition, while I agreed with the recommendations at the chapter's conclusion, I'm not sure where they came from nor how they ended up there. They seem to have been plucked from the research by choice, not by analysis. Certainly, a list of recommendations along the lines of those in the chapter would be much more detailed and inclusive.

I was also not enthusiastic about Chapter 5, also co-written by Braxton. This writing is pulled in part from his 2000 book, Reworking the Student Departure Puzzle. When academic science comes down to counting the number of articles or "tests" to prove the worth of a theory, I stop reading.

Amaury Nora, Elizabeth Barlow, and Gloria Crisp do a nice review of the literature regarding retention, and also provide analysis of a first-time in college (FTIC) database. My only complaint is that they don't describe the database or source to any degree, so I'm not sure what to make of the data themselves. This chapter dovetails nicely with Alberto Cabrera, Kurt Burkum, and Steven La Nasa's chapter on four-year degree persistence. Cabrera is very familiar with the national databases and chooses the 1982 High School and Beyond (HSB) database for his analysis. The data presented in this chapter provide a rich perspective on four-year degree programs and what it takes for students to persist, if not persevere, through the experience. I understand that publication timelines required HSB to be used for this analysis, but the more recent NELS database (1988-2000) would have provided richer details.

Alexander Astin and Leticia Oseguera offer their own data analysis using the CIRP data from UCLA. I found this chapter useful and think that readers will also be able to use this chapter as a resource for comparison. For instance, Astin and Oseguera state that only 28% of undergraduates at public universities graduate in four years, and 58% in six. The rates at private universities are 67 and 80% respectively. This type of information is important to give readers perspective on the scope of the retention and persistence challenge at their own institution. However, I find the use of ordinary least squares potentially risky for use on dichotomous variables. Also, while some of these findings are statistically significant, they are not necessarily of practical significance, and readers should be wary of that issue in all academic research.

Chapters that are light on statistical data include Joseph Berger and Susan Lyon's historical look at student retention (Chapter 1). Although this chapter is a typical academic piece, 1 found its utility limited. At best, it describes the making of higher education in America. But this historical perspective does not help us understand the issues of retention today or what we should do with it. At the other end of the book, John Schuh's chapter on finances and retention is similarly limited. Like the Berger and Lyon chapter, this chapter provides much data on finances but with little relevance to the retention and persistence dialogue.

The two best and most useful chapters in the book are those written by John Bean (Chapter 8) and Vincent Tinto (Epilogue). Both authors are "fathers" of student retention research, and their words still resonate well within the current dialogue. In fact, I would go as far as to say that their contributions provide a much-needed and well-thought-out balance. Bean identifies nine themes of student retention, including student intentions, commitment/fit, attitudes, academics, social factors, bureaucratic factors, external environment, student background, and money/ finance. As he notes, change in student retention requires changes in institutional personnel and the services provided by these individuals, changes in the composition of the student body, and "changes in the way these two groups interact" (p. 236). Ultimately, changes in the first of these three elements is the greatest challenge, as change at the institutional level is required to leverage change at the student level (notwithstanding policy changes in admissions). Bean's chapter hammers home the necessary point that retention is ultimately about institutional change; and unless colleges embrace that belief, positive developments in student retention are unlikely to happen.

Tinto's epilogue provides a capstone to the efforts of the various authors in this book. Like Bean, he provides a more pragmatic perspective on student retention; and while he talks mostly about producing a model of student retention, he reminds us that this endeavor is a complex one and that the model may not be as important as understanding what works at the institutional and student levels. "We have yet to develop an effective model of institutional action that provides institutions [with] guidelines for the development of policies, programs, and practices to enhance student success" (p. 331).

College Student Retention will serve well as a reference for researchers but less well for practitioners. It would have benefited from limiting the chapters to half their number, thus reducing redundancy and enhancing their utility. My general wish is that a book on student retention will clearly uncover histories while also opening new doors on the retention dialogue. I believe this book does an adequate job of both, but leaves readers hungry for a little more substance.

References

REFERENCES

Berkner, L, He, S., & Cataldi, E. F. (2002). Descriptive Summary of 1995-96 Beginning Postsecondary Students: Six Years Later. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

Braxton, J. M. (2000). Reworking the Student Departure Puzzle. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.